Today's Stichomancy for Christopher Lee

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum:

This last personage was not so disagreeable as the others. He had gentle and refined features, and his voice was soft and pleasant in tone.

"My brother Daemons do not trust me overmuch," said he, as he entered the cavern; "but it is morning, now, and the mischief is done. You cannot visit the children again for another year."

"That is true," answered Santa Claus, almost cheerfully; "Christmas Eve is past, and for the first time in centuries I have not visited my children."

"The little ones will be greatly disappointed," murmured the Daemon of Repentance, almost regretfully; "but that cannot be helped now. Their grief is likely to make the children selfish and envious and hateful,

A Kidnapped Santa Claus

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen:

"That is a great comfort--said I--I hope Ma'am that you never spent any unhappy one's there."

"Perfect Felicity is not the property of Mortals, and no one has a right to expect uninterrupted Happiness.--Some Misfortunes I have certainly met with."

"WHAT Misfortunes dear Ma'am? replied I, burning with impatience to know every thing. "NONE Ma'am I hope that have been the effect of any wilfull fault in me." " I dare say not Ma'am, and have no doubt but that any sufferings you may have experienced could arise only from the cruelties of Relations or the Errors of Freinds." She sighed--"You seem unhappy my dear Miss Grenville

Love and Friendship

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato:

the process as if it were pleasure; and they say that they would not wish to live without these and other feelings of a like kind which might be mentioned.

PROTARCHUS: That is certainly what they appear to think.

SOCRATES: And is not destruction universally admitted to be the opposite of generation?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then he who chooses thus, would choose generation and destruction rather than that third sort of life, in which, as we were saying, was neither pleasure nor pain, but only the purest possible thought.

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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac:

to others, who regard that beverage as a panacea for indigestion, I will add that Eugene was, by this time, writing letters. He was comfortably seated, with his feet more frequently on the andirons than, properly, on the rug. Ah! to have one's feet on the polished bar which connects the two griffins of a fender, and to think of our love in our dressing-gown is so delightful a thing that I deeply regret the fact of having neither mistress, nor fender, nor dressing-gown.

The first letter which Eugene wrote was soon finished; he folded and sealed it, and laid it before him without adding the address. The second letter, begun at eleven o'clock, was not finished till mid-day. The four pages were closely filled.