Today's Stichomancy for Eddie Murphy

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

a dodge for getting assent to the ordinances of the expert official by means of the polling booth. "If they don't like things," said he, "they can vote for the opposition candidate and see what happens then--and that, you see, is why we don't want proportional representation to let in the wild men." I opened my eyes--the lids had dropped for a moment under the caress of those smooth sounds--to see if Bailey's artful forefinger wasn't at the side of his predominant nose.

The international situation exercised us greatly. Our meetings were pervaded by the feeling that all things moved towards a day of reckoning with Germany, and I was largely instrumental in keeping up

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall:

produced in the planes of freezing, when radiant heat is sent through ice, we may safely infer symmetry of aggregation, and hence conclude that the line perpendicular to the planes of freezing is a line of no double refraction; that it is, in fact, the optic axis of the crystal. The same remark applies to the line joining the opposite blunt angles of a crystal of Iceland spar. The arrangement of the molecules round this line being symmetrical, the condition of the ether depending upon these molecules shares their symmetry; and there is, therefore, no reason why the wavelength should alter with the alteration of the azimuth round this line. Annealed glass has its molecules symmetrically arranged round every line that can be

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

sense of its growing more and more crimson. All the evening at home - he went straight to his rooms and remained there dinnerless - his cheek burned at intervals as if it had been smitten. He didn't understand what had happened to him, what trick had been played him, what treachery practised. "None, none," he said to himself. "I've nothing to do with it. I'm out of it - it s none of my business." But that bewildered murmur was followed again and again by the incongruous ejaculation: "Was it a plan - was it a plan?" Sometimes he cried to himself, breathless, "Have I been duped, sold, swindled?" If at all, he was an absurd, an abject victim. It was as if he hadn't lost her till now. He had

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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac:

The Peasantry A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Another Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve

Brandon, Lady Marie Augusta The Lily of the Valley La Grenadiere

Bridau, Joseph The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris