Today's Stichomancy for Russell Crowe

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

a character's dead at every word, I suppose.

MRS. CANDOUR. I am rejoiced you are come, Sir Peter--they have been so censorious and Lady Teazle as bad as any one.

SIR PETER. That must be very distressing to you, Mrs. Candour I dare swear.

MRS. CANDOUR. O they will allow good Qualities to nobody--not even good nature to our Friend Mrs. Pursy.

LADY TEAZLE. What, the fat dowager who was at Mrs. Codrille's [Quadrille's] last Night?

LADY SNEERWELL. Nay--her bulk is her misfortune and when she takes such Pains to get rid of it you ought not to reflect on her.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James:

"When I read Thackeray and George Eliot, how can I help minding them?"

"Ah well, Thackeray, and George Eliot," said the young nobleman; "I haven't read much of them."

"Don't you suppose they know about society?" asked Bessie Alden.

"Oh, I daresay they know; they were so very clever. But these fashionable novels," said Lord Lambeth, "they are awful rot, you know."

His companion looked at him a moment with her dark blue eyes, and then she looked down in the chasm where the water was tumbling about. "Do you mean Mrs. Gore, for instance?" she said presently, raising her eyes.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw:

pony might have broken my neck. This way of producing hardy bodies and timid souls is so common in country houses that you may spend hours in them listening to stories of broken collar bones, broken backs, and broken necks without coming upon a single spiritual adventure or daring thought.

But whether the risks to which liberty exposes us are moral or physical our right to liberty involves the right to run them. A man who is not free to risk his neck as an aviator or his soul as a heretic is not free at all; and the right to liberty begins, not at the age of 21 years but of 21 seconds.

The Risks of Ignorance and Weakness

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 King Lear by William Shakespeare:

Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter Who redeems nature from the general curse Which twain have brought her to. Edg. Hail, gentle sir. Gent. Sir, speed you. What's your will? Edg. Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward? Gent. Most sure and vulgar. Every one hears that Which can distinguish sound. Edg. But, by your favour, How near's the other army? Gent. Near and on speedy foot. The main descry

King Lear