Today's Stichomancy for Steve Martin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane:

like eyes upon the officer. Perhaps there was to him a divinity expressed in the voice of the other --stern, hard, with no reflection of fear in it. He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands pre- vented. The lieutenant was obliged to assist him.

The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the youth's company had been killed in an early part of the action. His body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man resting, but upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as if he thought some friend

The Red Badge of Courage

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac:

hundred millions spent upon them every quarter of a century (and which are now in a pitiable state), they gain nothing by making known in reports and memoranda their intelligent knowledge; it is immediately engulfed in the archives of the general Direction,-- that Parisian centre where everything enters and nothing issues; where old men are jealous of young ones, and all the posts of management are used to shelve old officers or men who have blundered.

This is why, with a body of scientific men spread all over the face of France and constituting a part of the administration,--a body which ought to enlighten every region on the subject of its

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau:

Art, which I call my front yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a decent appearance when the carpenter and mason have departed, though done as much for the passer-by as the dweller within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was never an agreeable object of study to me; the most elaborate ornaments, acorn tops, or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills up to the very edge of the swamp, then (though it may not be the best place for a dry cellar), so that there be no access on that side to citizens. Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me

Walking

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 The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay:

is now driven out, and I am going to fulfil that promise. I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for myself. This I say, without intending anything but respect for any one of you. But I already know the views of each on this question. . . . I have considered them as thoroughly and carefully as I can. What I have written is that which my reflections have determined me to say. If there is anything in the expressions I use, or in any minor matter which any one of you thinks had best be changed, I shall be glad to receive the suggestions. One other observation I will make. I know very well