Today's Stichomancy for Nick Lachey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

In tones of love, in tones of warning, She hailed me through my brief career; And kiss and buffet, night and morning, Told me my grandmamma was near; Whether she praised me high and clear Through her unrivalled circulation, Or, sanctimonious insincere, She damned me with a misquotation - A chequered but a sweet relation, Say, was it not, my granny dear?

Believe me, granny, altogether

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest:

Who is reckless of stockings and heedless of shoes? Who laughs at a tumble and grins at a bruise? Who climbs over fences and clambers up trees, And scrapes all the skin off his shins and his knees? Who sometimes comes home all bespattered with blood That was drawn by a fall? It's that rascal called Bud.

Yet, who is it makes all our toiling worth while? Who can cure every ache that we know, by his smile? Who is prince to his mother and king to his dad And makes us forget that we ever were sad? Who is center of all that we dream of and plan,

Just Folks

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon:

yet in spite of all, Meletus, you will have it that by such habits I corrupt the young. We know, I fancy, what such corrupting influences are; and perhaps you will tell us if you know of any one who, under my influence, has been changed from a religous into an irreligious man; who, from being sober-minded, has become prodigal; from being a moderate drinker has become a wine-bibber and a drunkard; from being a lover of healthy honest toil has become effeminate, or under the thrall of some other wicked pleasure."

[28] Lit. "whom do you know," and so throughout.

[29] Cf. Plat. "Phaed." 66 C.

[30] Or, "so attempered and adjusted." The phrase savours of "cynic."

The Apology

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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:

they are his due.

Orange. But what if he should arrogate still more, and regard as disloyalty what we esteem the maintenance of our just rights?

Egmont. We shall know in that case how to defend ourselves. Let him assemble the Knights of the Golden Fleece; we will submit ourselves to their decision.

Orange. What if the sentence were to precede the trial? punishment, the sentence?

Egmont. It were an injustice of which Philip is incapable; a folly which I cannot impute either to him or to his counsellors.

Orange. And how if they were both unjust and foolish?

Egmont