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 Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis:

Do ye hear them still?--it was long ago!-- But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Spirits there be that pass in peace; Mine passed in a whorl of wrath and dole; And the hour that your choking breath shall cease I will get my grip on your naked soul-- Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole-- I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate: To me, to me, ye must pay the toll! And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

The dead they are dead, they are out of the way?

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

tumultuous scene. In the ditch beside the road, right side up, but violently shorn of one wheel, rested a new coupe which had left Gatsby's drive not two minutes before. The sharp jut of a wall accounted for the detachment of the wheel, which was now getting considerable attention from half a dozen curious chauffeurs. However, as they had left their cars blocking the road, a harsh, discordant din from those in the rear had been audible for some time, and added to the already violent confusion of the scene.

A man in a long duster had dismounted from the wreck and now stood in the middle of the road, looking from the car to the tire and from the tire to the observers in a pleasant, puzzled way.

The Great Gatsby

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare:

one door, and Corineius at the other.]

CORINEIUS. Art thou that Humber, prince of fugitives, That by thy treason slewst young Albanact?

HUBBA. I am his son that slew young Albanact, And if thou take not heed, proud Phrigian, I'll send thy soul unto the Stigian lake, There to complain of Humber's injuries.

CORINEIUS. You triumph, sir, before the victory,

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 Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell:

and live laborious days.'' And the comparatively small number of men with an invincible horror of work--the sort of men who now become tramps-- might lead a harmless existence, without any grave danger of their becoming sufficiently numerous to be a serious burden upon the more industrious. In this ways the claims of freedom could be combined with the need of some economic stimulus to work. Such a system, it seems to me, would have a far greater chance of success than either pure Anarchism or pure orthodox Socialism.