Today's Stichomancy for Hugh Grant

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken:

The doors of night are closed. We go our ways.

VII.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light. The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east: And lights wink out through the windows, one by one. A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night. Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams, The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street, And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain. The purple lights leap down the hill before him.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

But there remains a scruple in that too; For though her father be the King of Naples, Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor, And our nobility will scorn the match.

MARGARET. Hear ye, captain, are you not at leisure?

SUFFOLK. It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much: Henry is youthful and will quickly yield. Madam, I have a secret to reveal.

MARGARET.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth:

rule will be first work then eat. And that amount of work will be exacted rigorously. It is that which distinguishes this Scheme from mere charitable relief.

I do not wish to have any hand in establishing a new centre of demoralisation. I do not want my customers to be pauperised by being treated to anything which they do not earn. To develop self-respect in the man, to make him feel that at last he has go this foot planted on the first rung of the ladder which leads upwards, is vitally important, and this cannot be done unless the bargain between him and me is strictly carried out. So much coffee, so much bread, so much shelter, so much warmth and light from me, but so much labour in return from

In Darkest England and The Way Out

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 The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

Quick, make up thy mind,

And fresh wealth find. If honour is gone--then much is gone!

Seek glory to find,

And people then will alter their mind. If courage is gone--then all is gone! 'Twere better that thou hadst never been born.

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HE who with life makes sport,

Can prosper never; Who rules himself in nought,