Today's Stichomancy for Freddie Prinze Jr.

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce:

While _you_ -- you Supralapsarian pup! -- Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up. It's all the same whether up or down You slip on a peel of banana brown. Even Adam analyzed not his blunder, But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!

G.J.

INGRATE, n. One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.

"All men are ingrates," sneered the cynic. "Nay," The good philanthropist replied;

The Devil's Dictionary

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift:

myself, it was manifest I had neither the strength nor agility of a common YAHOO; that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no use or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was intended as a shelter from the sun and the weather: lastly, that I could neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my brethren," as he called them, "the YAHOOS in his country.

"That our institutions of government and law were plainly owing to our gross defects in reason, and by consequence in virtue; because reason alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature; which was, therefore, a character we had no pretence to

Gulliver's Travels

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The United States Constitution:

and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of it's equal Suffrage in the Senate.

ARTICLE SIX

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States

The United States Constitution

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 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce:

inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness -- of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge