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 Emma by Jane Austen:

only it seems too good--but just as you please. What you direct in this house cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning."

Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper; but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked. He was warm in his reprobation of Mr. Elton's conduct; it had been unpardonable rudeness; and Mrs. Elton's looks also received the due share of censure.

Emma

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon:

will he need aught else, or have we found at last your bailiff absolute?[3]

[3] Cf. Plat. "Rep." 566 D. Or, "the perfect and consummate type of bailiff."

Isch. He must learn at any rate, I think, to rule his fellow-workmen.

What! (I exclaimed): you mean to say you educate your bailiffs to that extent? Actually you make them capable of rule?

At any rate I try to do so (he replied).

And how, in Heaven's name (I asked), do you contrive to educate another in the skill to govern human beings?

Isch. I have a very simple system, Socrates; so simple, I daresay, you

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells:

They had long since dropped to pieces, and every semblance of print had left them. But here and there were warped boards and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I been a literary man I might, perhaps, have moralized upon the futility of all ambition. But as it was, the thing that struck me with keenest force was the enormous waste of labour to which this sombre wilderness of rotting paper testified. At the time I will confess that I thought chiefly of the PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS and my own seventeen papers upon physical optics.

`Then, going up a broad staircase, we came to what may once have been a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I had not a

The Time Machine

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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton:

Letters'--it's the only book people are talking of this week."

Mrs. Dresham immediately saw her advantage. "You HAVEN'T read them? How very extraordinary! As Mrs. Armiger says, the book's in the air; one breathes it in like the influenza."

Glennard sat motionless, watching his wife.

"Perhaps it hasn't reached the suburbs yet," she said, with her unruffled smile.

"Oh, DO let me come to you, then!" Mrs. Touchett cried; "anything for a change of air! I'm positively sick of the book and I can't put it down. Can't you sail us beyond its reach, Mr. Flamel?"

Flamel shook his head. "Not even with this breeze. Literature