Today's Stichomancy for Joel Grey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne:

captain preferred to shoot standing, so as you could be sure to get your hand upon your gun. The best would be to summon Huish, and when Attwater stood up and turned--ah, then would be the moment. Wrapped in his ardent prefiguration of events, the captain posted towards the house with his head down.

'Hands up! Halt!' cried the voice of Attwater.

And the captain, before he knew what he was doing, had obeyed. The surprise was complete and irremediable. Coming on the top crest of his murderous intentions, he had walked straight into an ambuscade, and now stood, with his hands

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne:

But the professor was in the worst of tempers. Generally taciturn and morose, he was more than usually uncivil whenever any one ventured to speak to him. The loss of his telescope had doubtless a great deal to do with his ill-humor; but the captain drew the most favorable conclusions from Rosette's continued irritation. Had the comet been in any way projected from its course, so as to be likely to fail in coming into contact with the earth, the professor would have been quite unable to conceal his satisfaction. But they required to know more than the general truth, and felt that they had no time to lose in getting at the exact details.

The opportunity that was wanted soon came.

On the 18th, Rosette was overheard in furious altercation

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

Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now, Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, My heart remembers how!

Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places, Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor, Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races, And winds, austere and pure:

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home! and to hear again the call; Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying, And hear no more at all.

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 First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln:

a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. MUST Congress protect slavery in the Territories?