Today's Stichomancy for W. C. Fields

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

Awash with sodden deals, We've slipped from Valparaiso With the Norther at our heels: We've ratched beyond the Crossets That tusk the Southern Pole, And dipped our gunnels under To the dread Agulhas roll. Beyond all outer charting We sailed where none have sailed, And saw the land-lights burning

Verses 1889-1896

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

"Don't do it! Don't consent to the transformation," urged Ervic.

"They have already consented," said the Yookoohoo, laughing in his face, "and you have promised me to abide by their decision. So, friend Skeezer, I shall perform the transformation whether you like it or not."

Ervic seated himself on the bench again, a deep scowl on his face but joy in his heart. Reera moved over to the cupboard, took something from the drawer and returned to the copper kettle. She was clutching something tightly in her right hand, but with her left

Glinda of Oz

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde:

The evolution of man is slow. The injustice of men is great. It was necessary that pain should be put forward as a mode of self- realisation. Even now, in some places in the world, the message of Christ is necessary. No one who lived in modern Russia could possibly realise his perfection except by pain. A few Russian artists have realised themselves in Art; in a fiction that is mediaeval in character, because its dominant note is the realisation of men through suffering. But for those who are not artists, and to whom there is no mode of life but the actual life of fact, pain is the only door to perfection. A Russian who lives happily under the present system of government in Russia must

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 Juana by Honore de Balzac:

is misunderstood. If Juana had loved Diard she would have esteemed him. Love creates in a wife a new woman; the woman of the day before no longer exists on the morrow. Putting on the nuptial robe of a passion in which life itself is concerned, the woman wraps herself in purity and whiteness. Reborn into virtue and chastity, there is no past for her; she is all future, and should forget the things behind her to relearn life. In this sense the famous words which a modern poet has put into the lips of Marion Delorme is infused with truth,--

"And Love remade me virgin."

That line seems like a reminiscence of a tragedy of Corneille, so truly does it recall the energetic diction of the father of our modern