Today's Stichomancy for Stephen Colbert

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale:

Swept by the tempest of your love, A taper in a rushing wind.

PIERROT'S SONG

(For a picture by Dugald Walker)

LADY, light in the east hangs low, Draw your veils of dream apart, Under the casement stands Pierrot Making a song to ease his heart. (Yet do not break the song too soon-- I love to sing in the paling moon.)

The petals are falling, heavy with dew,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie:

With roses peeping in, you know, And babies peeping out."

With a blow of their fists they made windows, and large yellow leaves were the blinds. But roses -- ?

"Roses," cried Peter sternly.

Quickly they made-believe to grow the loveliest roses up the walls.

Babies?

To prevent Peter ordering babies they hurried into song again:

"We've made the roses peeping out, The babes are at the door,

Peter Pan

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence:

'And was he a collier himself?'

'Blacksmith on the pit-bank, I believe: overhead smith. But he was keeper here for two years before the war...before he joined up. My father always had a good Opinion of him, so when he came back, and went to the pit for a blacksmith's job, I just took him back here as keeper. I was really very glad to get him...its almost impossible to find a good man round here for a gamekeeper...and it needs a man who knows the people.'

'And isn't he married?'

'He was. But his wife went off with...with various men...but finally with a collier at Stacks Gate, and I believe she's living there still.'

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf:

with rage and remembered some command of his; some insolence: "Do this," "Do that," his dominance: his "Submit to me."

So she said nothing, but looked doggedly and sadly at the shore, wrapped in its mantle of peace; as if the people there had fallen asleep, she thought; were free like smoke, were free to come and go like ghosts. They have no suffering there, she thought.

Yes, that is their boat, Lily Briscoe decided, standing on the edge of the lawn. It was the boat with greyish-brown sails, which she saw now flatten itself upon the water and shoot off across the bay. There he sits, she thought, and the children are quite silent still. And she

To the Lighthouse