Today's Stichomancy for Chris Elliott

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare:

Thus from the heart's aboundance speaks the tongue; Countess for Emperour: and indeed, why not? She is as imperator over me And I to her Am as a kneeling vassal, that observes The pleasure or displeasure of her eye.

[Enter Lodowick.]

What says the more than Cleopatra's match To Caesar now?

LODOWICK. That yet, my liege, ere night

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll:

But HERE there'll be a lot to do!" I faintly gasped "Indeed!

"If I 'd been rather later, I'll Be bound," I added, trying (Most unsuccessfully) to smile, "You'd have been busy all this while, Trimming and beautifying?"

"Why, no," said he; "perhaps I should Have stayed another minute - But still no Ghost, that's any good, Without an introduction would

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson:

the sailors being at the same time busily employed in clearing the foundation of chips and in conveying the irons to and from the smiths on the beacon, where they were sharped. At eight o'clock the sea broke in upon us and overflowed the foundation-pit, when the boats returned to the tender.

[Thursday, 7th July]

The landing-master's bell rung this morning about four o'clock, and at half-past five, the foundation being cleared, the work commenced on the site of the building. But from the moment of landing, the squad of joiners and millwrights was at work upon the higher parts of the rock in laying the railways,

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 Adieu by Honore de Balzac:

bottle of salts, which revived the colonel for a moment. When he opened his eyes he turned them to the meadow, where the unknown woman was still running and uttering her distressing cries. A smothered exclamation escaped him, which seemed to express a sense of horror; then he closed his eyes again, and made a gesture as if to implore his friend to remove him from that sight.

Monsieur and Madame de Granville placed their carriage entirely at the disposal of the marquis, assuring him courteously that they would like to continue their way on foot.

"Who is that lady?" asked the marquis, signing toward the unknown woman.