Today's Stichomancy for Groucho Marx

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde:

In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar, White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede Between the waving poplars and the sea Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall, And on the nearer side a little brood Of careless lions holding festival! And stood amazed at such hardihood, And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore, And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o'er

Some unfrequented height, and coming down

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius:

His wife broke the silence with:

"What happened, Billy? Were you sick?"

"No, mother, I wasn't sick."

Martin was still looking at his paper, which his fists gripped tightly.

"Then you just couldn't get home sooner, could you? Something you couldn't help kept you away, didn't it?"

Bill shook his head slowly. "No," he answered easily. "I could have come home much sooner."

"Billy, dear, what DID happen?" She was beginning to feel panicky; he was courting distress.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson:

lamps were beginning to enlarge their circles in the growing dusk, a brace of barefoot lassies were seen coming eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as much as nine, the other was certainly not more than seven. They were miserably clad; and the pavement was so cold, you would have thought no one could lay a naked foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along waltzing, if you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them music. The person who saw this, and whose heart was full of bitterness at the moment, pocketed a reproof which has been of use to him ever since, and which he now hands on,

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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard:

high, he does not strike one as a tall man. As I looked at him I could not help thinking what a curious contrast my little dried-up self presented to his grand face and form. Imagine to yourself a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin hands, large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and standing up like a half-worn scrubbing-brush -- total weight in my clothes, nine stone six -- and you will get a very fair idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly called Hunter Quatermain, or by the natives 'Macumazahn' -- Anglic/CHAR: e grave/, he who keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp fellow who is not to be taken in.

Allan Quatermain