Today's Stichomancy for Bill O'Reilly

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rinkitink In Oz by L. Frank Baum:

did not climb a tree to escape, as she had always done before on meeting such creatures, but stood still and faced the boar. When it had come quite close and Zella saw that it could not injure her -- a fact that astonished both the beast and the girl -- she suddenly reached down and seizing it by one ear threw the great beast far off amongst the trees, where it fell headlong to the earth, grunting louder than ever with surprise and fear.

The girl laughed merrily at this incident and, picking up her pails, resumed her journey through the

Rinkitink In Oz

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades:

to have provided food enough for the development of the grub. But, although the ink may be unwholesome, many grubs survive, and, eating day and night in silence and darkness, work out their destiny leaving, according to the strength of their constitutions, a longer or shorter tunnel in the volume.

In December, 1879, Mr. Birdsall, a well-known book-binder of Northampton, kindly sent me by post a fat little Worm, which had been found by one of his workmen in an old book while being bound. He bore his journey extremely well, being very lively when turned out. I placed him in a box in warmth and quiet, with some small fragments of paper from a Boethius,

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

with a gesture that was not only the poetry of grace but as though bestowing some royal favor; when she curved and swayed her body, again it was with the lofty sweetness of one too highly placed to descend to mere seductiveness. She glided up and down, back and forth, with a dreamy revealing mo- tion as if assisting to shape some vague impas- sioned image in the brain of a poet. She lifted her little feet in a manner that transformed boards into clouds. There were moments when she seemed actually to soar.

Rezanov

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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius:

Are intermingled 'gin to feel that those Primordials of the body have been strook, And ere, in pounding with such gaps between, They clash, combine and leap apart in turn. But mind is more the keeper of the gates, Hath more dominion over life than soul. For without intellect and mind there's not One part of soul can rest within our frame Least part of time; companioning, it goes With mind into the winds away, and leaves The icy members in the cold of death.

Of The Nature of Things