Today's Stichomancy for W. C. Fields

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell:

regard (however falsely) as wholly useless except for purposes of examination. The really useful educa- tion is that which follows the direction of the child's own instinctive interests, supplying knowledge for which it is seeking, not dry, detailed information wholly out of relation to its spontaneous desires.

[60] Some may fear that the result would be an undue increase of population, but such fears I believe to be groundless. See above, (Chapter IV, on ``Work and Pay.'' Also, Chapter vi of ``Principles of Social Reconstruction'' (George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.).

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy:

"Anna and I are for Kuzovlev," replied Betsy.

"I'm for Vronsky. A pair of gloves?"

"Done!"

"But it is a pretty sight, isn't it?"

Alexey Alexandrovitch paused while there was talking about him, but he began again directly.

"I admit that manly sports do not . . ." he was continuing.

But at that moment the racers started, and all conversation ceased. Alexey Alexandrovitch too was silent, and every one stood up and turned towards the stream. Alexey Alexandrovitch took no interest in the race, and so he did not watch the racers, but

Anna Karenina

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw:

say about it, just as he used to submit difficult lines from the sonnets.

This surmise was that "Sidney's sister: Pembroke's mother" set Shakespear on to persuade Pembroke to marry, and that this was the explanation of those earlier sonnets which so persistently and unnaturally urged matrimony on Mr W. H. I take this to be one of the brightest of Tyler's ideas, because the persuasions in the sonnets are unaccountable and out of character unless they were offered to please somebody whom Shakespear desired to please, and who took a motherly interest in Pembroke. There is a further temptation in the theory for me. The most charming of all Shakespear's old women, indeed the most

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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo:

uncouth or savage, and seem only planted for shade and coolness. Among a prodigious number of trees which fill them, there is one kind which I have seen in no other place, and to which we have none that bears any resemblance. This tree, which the natives call ensete, is wonderfully useful; its leaves, which are so large as to cover a man, make hangings for rooms, and serve the inhabitants instead of linen for their tables and carpets. They grind the branches and the thick parts of the leaves, and when they are mingled with milk, find them a delicious food. The trunk and the roots are even more nourishing than the leaves or branches, and the meaner people, when they go a journey, make no provision of any