Today's Stichomancy for Steve Martin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Mr. Clayton," she said icily, "and I regret that I am not a man, that I might make it." She turned quickly and entered the cabin.

Clayton was an Englishman, so the girl had passed quite out of sight before he deduced what reply a man would have made.

"Upon my word," he said ruefully, "she called me a liar. And I fancy I jolly well deserved it," he added thoughtfully. "Clayton, my boy, I know you are tired out and unstrung, but that's no reason why you should make an ass of yourself. You'd better go to bed."

But before he did so he called gently to Jane upon the opposite

Tarzan of the Apes

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Koran:

then He will inform them of what they have done upon the resurrection day; verily, God all things doth know!

Dost thou not look at those who were prohibited from privy talk, and then returned to that they were forbidden? and they too discourse together with sin and enmity and rebellion against the Apostle; and when they come to thee they greet thee with what God greets thee not; and they say in themselves, Why does not God torment us for what we say? Hell is enough for them! they shall broil therein, and an ill journey shall it be!

O ye who believe! when ye discourse together, then discourse not in sin and enmity and rebellion against the Apostle; but discourse

The Koran

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Travels and Researches in South Africa by Dr. David Livingstone:

the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared. [Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED. Some obvious errors have been corrected.]

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. Also called, Travels and Researches in South Africa; or, Journeys and Researches in South Africa. By David Livingstone [British (Scot) Missionary and Explorer--1813-1873.]

David Livingstone was born in Scotland, received his medical degree from the University of Glasgow, and was sent to South Africa by the London Missionary Society. Circumstances led him to try to meet the material needs as well as the spiritual needs of the people he went to,

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 Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

An easy trust assumed of easy trials, A sick negation born of weak denials, A crazed abhorrence of an old condition, A blind attendance on a brief ambition, -- Whatever stayed him or derided him, His way was even as ours; And we, with all our wounds and all our powers, Must each await alone at his own height Another darkness or another light; And there, of our poor self dominion reft, If inference and reason shun