Today's Stichomancy for Howard Stern

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac:

bold, sudden strokes and the nervous energy of his play. Hither and thither he would swim over the vast sea of interests in Paris, in quest of some little isle that should be so far a debatable land that he might abide upon it. Clearly Couture was not in his proper place.

As for the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be enough--it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at

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

interrogating the whole nature of each and all in their entirety, but not condescending to anything which is within reach.

THEODORUS: What do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I will illustrate my meaning, Theodorus, by the jest which the clever witty Thracian handmaid is said to have made about Thales, when he fell into a well as he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he was so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what was before his feet. This is a jest which is equally applicable to all philosophers. For the philosopher is wholly unacquainted with his next- door neighbour; he is ignorant, not only of what he is doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a man or an animal; he is searching into the essence of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare:

Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn To do this piece of ruthless butchery, Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, Melted with tenderness and mild compassion, Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story. 'O, thus' quoth Dighton 'lay the gentle babes'- 'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest 'girdling one another Within their alabaster innocent arms. Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other. A book of prayers on their pillow lay;

Richard III

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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare:

For all my mind, my thought, my busy care, Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.' 384

Thus she replies: 'Thy palfrey, as he should, Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire: Affection is a coal that must be cool'd; Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire: 388 The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none; Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.

'How like a Jade he stood, tied to the tree, Servilely master'd with a leathern rein! 392 But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee,