Today's Stichomancy for Groucho Marx

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James:

shade of dryness deepened. "Oh if you didn't do her justice--!"

"I SHOULD be a beast, eh?"

Strether devoted no time to saying what he would be; THAT, visibly, would take them far. If there was nothing for it but to repeat, however, repetition was no mistake. "You owe her everything--very much more than she can ever owe you. You've in other words duties to her, of the most positive sort; and I don't see what other duties--as the others are presented to you--can be held to go before them."

Chad looked at him with a smile. "And you know of course about the others, eh?--since it's you yourself who have done the presenting."

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

board his ship and drink a glass of beer with him. We poked sceptically for a while amongst the bushes, peered without conviction into a ditch or two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glim- mered feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged back, drooping under the thin sickle of the moon, and I heard him mutter to himself, "Himmel! Zwei und dreissig Pfund!" He was impressed by the figure of my loss. For a long time we had ceased to hear the mate's whoops and yells.

Then he said to me, "Everybody has his troub-

Falk

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Who saw his heroes shed their gore, And lacked a shilling to buy more!

THE GRAVER THE PEN: OR, SCENES FROM NATURE, WITH APPROPRIATE VERSES

Poem: I - PROEM

Unlike the common run of men, I wield a double power to please, And use the GRAVER and the PEN With equal aptitude and ease.

I move with that illustrious crew, The ambidextrous Kings of Art; And every mortal thing I do

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 Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson:

the text, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline in scenery, it must be understood, is something more than a mere walk before breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly neighbourhood, and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the ardour and patience of a botanist after a rye plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves in the art of seeing nature more favourably. We learn to live with her, as people learn to live with fretful or violent spouses: to dwell lovingly on what is good, and shut our eyes against all that is bleak or inharmonious. We learn, also, to come to each place in the right