Today's Stichomancy for Groucho Marx

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James:

"You must keep me in good humor."

"Please to walk on, then. I don't in the least pity you; she is very charming with you."

"True enough; but insisting on that is not the way to keep me in good humor-- when I feel as I do."

"How is it you feel?"

"Puzzled to death--bewildered--depressed!"

This was but the beginning of Gordon Wright's list; he went on to say that though he "thought as highly" of Miss Vivian as he had ever done, he felt less at his ease with her than in the first weeks of their acquaintance, and this condition made him uncomfortable and unhappy.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft:

and my soul sickens at the bare supposition, that it could ever be a duty to pretend affection, when a separation is necessary to prevent my feeling hourly aversion.

"To force me to give my fortune, I was imprisoned--yes; in a private mad-house.--There, in the heart of misery, I met the man charged with seducing me. We became attached--I deemed, and ever shall deem, myself free. The death of my babe dissolved the only tie which subsisted between me and my, what is termed, lawful husband.

"To this person, thus encountered, I voluntarily gave myself, never considering myself as any more bound to transgress the laws of moral purity, because the will of my husband might be pleaded

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad:

of all the appearances of success and power.

"Sometimes he was contemptibly childish. He desired to have kings meet him at railway-stations on his return from some ghastly Nowhere, where he intended to accomplish great things. `You show them you have in you something that is really profitable, and then there will be no limits to the recognition of your ability,' he would say. `Of course you must take care of the motives-- right motives--always.' The long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly alike, slipped past the steamer with their multitude of secular trees looking patiently after this grimy fragment of another world,

Heart of Darkness

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 Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac:

one of the most dismal streets in Paris; it has a north aspect like all the streets that lie at right angles to the left bank of the Seine, and the houses are in keeping with the site. As Castanier stood on the threshold he found that the door itself, like the vaulted roof, was hung with black; rows of lighted tapers shone brilliantly as though some king were lying in state; and a priest stood on either side of a catafalque that had been raised there.

"There is no need to ask why you have come, sir," the old hall porter said to Castanier; "you are so like our poor dear master that is gone. But if you are his brother, you have come too late to bid him good-bye. The good gentleman died the night before last."