Today's Stichomancy for Richard Burton

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot:

And flea'd his rump and pared his claws? Thought Burbank, meditating on Time's ruins, and the seven laws.

Sweeney Erect

And the trees about me, Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks Groan with continual surges; and behind me Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!

Paint me a cavernous waste shore Cast in the unstilted Cyclades, Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

I cut through the bridge supports. That took me several hours to do and made me very tired. But it was such fun to know that people would be worrying and fussing about who did it."

Varna rubbed his hands gleefully. He did not look the least bit malicious but only very much amused. The doctor groaned. Gyuri's great body trembled, his arms shook, but he did not make a single voluntary movement. He saw the revolver in Muller's hand and felt the keen grey eyes resting on him in pitiless calm.

"And now tell us about the pastor?" said the detective in a firm clear voice.

"Oh, he was a dear, good gentleman," said No. 302 with an expression

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare:

Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe, And, for my sake, serve thou false Tarquin so.

'This brief abridgement of my will I make: My soul and body to the skies and ground; My resolution, husband, do thou take; Mine honour be the knife's that makes my wound; My shame be his that did my fame confound; And all my fame that lives disburs'd be To those that live, and think no shame of me.

'Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will; How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!

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 Cromwell by William Shakespeare:

And to good stomachs is no greater wrong.

[Exit omnes.]

ACT IV. SCENE V. The same. A room in the Bishop of Winchester's house.

[Enter Gardiner in his study, and his man.]

GARDINER. Sirra, where be those men I caused to stay?

SERVANT. They do attend your pleasure, sir, within.

GARDINER. Bid them come hither, and stay you without:--