Today's Stichomancy for David Letterman

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad:

You made me hold my tongue just a bit too long."

"Do you know how it was that Captain Whalley re- mained on board? Did he really refuse to leave? Come now! Or was it perhaps an accidental . . .?"

"Nothing!" Sterne interrupted with energy. "I tell you I yelled for him to leap overboard. He simply MUST have cast off the painter of the boat himself. We all yelled to him--that is, Jack and I. He wouldn't even answer us. The ship was as silent as a grave to the last. Then the boilers fetched away, and down she went. Accident! Not it! The game was up, sir, I tell you."

End of the Tether

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence:

figure appeared, a small, frail woman, rosy, with great dark brown eyes.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, smiling with a little glow, "you've come, then. I AM glad to see you." Her voice was intimate and rather sad.

The two women shook hands.

"Now are you sure we're not a bother to you?" said Mrs. Morel. "I know what a farming life is."

"Oh no! We're only too thankful to see a new face, it's so lost up here."

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Morel.

They were taken through into the parlour--a long, low room, with a great bunch of guelder-roses in the fireplace. There the

Sons and Lovers

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes:

mistress, my dear, that I am grieved to the heart because of her distresses, and wish I was a Fucar to remedy them, and that I would have her know that I cannot be, and ought not be, in health while deprived of the happiness of seeing her and enjoying her discreet conversation, and that I implore her as earnestly as I can, to allow herself to be seen and addressed by this her captive servant and forlorn knight. Tell her, too, that when she least expects it she will hear it announced that I have made an oath and vow after the fashion of that which the Marquis of Mantua made to avenge his nephew Baldwin, when he found him at the point of death in the heart of the mountains, which was, not to eat bread off a tablecloth, and other trifling

Don Quixote

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 School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

SIR PETER. Heyday--what's the mystery now? while he appeared an incorrigible Rake, you would give your hand to no one else and now that He's likely to reform I'll warrant You won't have him!

MARIA. His own Heart--and Lady Sneerwell know the cause.

[CHARLES.] Lady Sneerwell!

SURFACE. Brother it is with great concern--I am obliged to speak on this Point, but my Regard to justice obliges me-- and Lady Sneerwell's injuries can no longer--be concealed-- [Goes to the Door.]

Enter LADY SNEERWELL

SIR PETER. Soh! another French milliner egad! He has one