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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac:

he is able to explain, while the Angelic Spirit sees and comprehends. Science depresses man; Love exalts the Angel. Science is still seeking, Love has found. Man judges Nature according to his own relations to her; the Angelic Spirit judges it in its relation to Heaven. In short, all things have a voice for the Spirit. Spirits are in the secret of the harmony of all creations with each other; they comprehend the spirit of sound, the spirit of color, the spirit of vegetable life; they can question the mineral, and the mineral makes answer to their thoughts. What to them are sciences and the treasures of the earth when they grasp all things by the eye at all moments, when the worlds which absorb the minds of so many men are to them but

Seraphita

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe:

were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; till the latter end of November or the beginning of December 1664 when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Long Acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury Lane. The family they were in endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible, but as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighbourhood, the Secretaries of State got knowledge of it; and concerning themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house and make inspection. This they did; and finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions publicly that they died of the plague.

A Journal of the Plague Year

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil:

The following Centaur, and the Dolphin's crew, Their vanish'd hopes of victory renew; While Gyas lags, they kindle in the race, To reach the mark. Sergesthus takes the place; Mnestheus pursues; and while around they wind, Comes up, not half his galley's length behind; Then, on the deck, amidst his mates appear'd, And thus their drooping courage he cheer'd: "My friends, and Hector's followers heretofore, Exert your vigor; tug the lab'ring oar; Stretch to your strokes, my still unconquer'd crew,

Aeneid

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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

For she is deeper - deeper Than the sea. Yet in my dreams I view her Flush rosy with new ruth - Dreams! Ah, may these prove truer Than the truth.

WHEN THE SUN COMES AFTER RAIN

WHEN the sun comes after rain And the bird is in the blue, The girls go down the lane Two by two.