Today's Stichomancy for Ashlee Simpson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche:

Do ye know the terror of him who falleth asleep?--

To the very toes he is terrified, because the ground giveth way under him, and the dream beginneth.

This do I speak unto you in parable. Yesterday at the stillest hour did the ground give way under me: the dream began.

The hour-hand moved on, the timepiece of my life drew breath--never did I hear such stillness around me, so that my heart was terrified.

Then was there spoken unto me without voice: "THOU KNOWEST IT, ZARATHUSTRA?"--

And I cried in terror at this whispering, and the blood left my face: but I was silent.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

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

established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to organise the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force. But Wisdom has always been hidden from it. Considered as an instrument of thought, the English mind is coarse and undeveloped. The only thing that can purify it is the growth of the critical instinct.

It is Criticism, again, that, by concentration, makes culture possible. It takes the cumbersome mass of creative work, and distils it into a finer essence. Who that desires to retain any sense of form could struggle through the monstrous multitudinous books that the world has produced, books in which thought stammers

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac:

boldness among men and his timidity in a boudoir.

"Madame Firmiani?" cries another, twirling his cane. "I'll tell you what I think of her; she is a woman between thirty and thirty-five; faded complexion, handsome eyes, flat figure, contralto voice worn out, much dressed, rather rouged, charming manners; in short, my dear fellow, the remains of a pretty woman who is still worth the trouble of a passion." This remark is from the species Fop, who has just breakfasted, doesn't weigh his words, and is about to mount his horse. At that particular moment Fops are pitiless.

"Magnificent collection of pictures in her house; go and see them by all means," answers another. "Nothing finer." You have questioned one

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 The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare:

The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

III.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, 'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument. Persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love: Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.