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 Ivanhoe by Walter Scott:

benches for their use.

On the present occasion, a throne was erected for the Grand Master at the east end, surrounded with seats of distinction for the Preceptors and Knights of the Order. Over these floated the sacred standard, called _Le Beau-seant_, which was the ensign, as its name was the battle-cry, of the Templars.

At the opposite end of the lists was a pile of faggots, so arranged around a stake, deeply fixed in the ground, as to leave a space for the victim whom they were destined to consume, to enter within the

Ivanhoe

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber:

hundreds of years since the first Westervelds came to America, and they had married and intermarried until the original Holland strain had almost entirely disappeared. They had drifted to southern Illinois by one of those slow processes of migration and had settled in Calhoun County, then almost a wilderness, but magnificent with its rolling hills, majestic rivers, and gold-and-purple distances. But to the practical Westerveld mind, hills and rivers and purple haze existed only in their relation to crops and weather. Ben, though, had a way of turning his face up to the sky sometimes, and it was not to scan the heavens for clouds. You saw him leaning on the plow handle to watch the

One Basket

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo:

"You've been working a long time on that."

"I thought I might help you if I learned everything you told me," she answered, timidly. "But I don't suppose I could."

"I can never tell you how much you help me, Polly."

"Do I?" she cried, eagerly.

"I can help more if you will only let me. I can teach a bigger class in Sunday-school now. I got to the book of Ruth to-day."

"You did?" He pretended to be astonished. He was anxious to encourage her enthusiasm.

"Um hum!" She answered solemnly. A dreamy look came into her eyes. "Do you remember the part that you read to me the first

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 Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake:

But I saw a glow-worm near, Who replied, 'What wailing wight Calls the watchman of the night?'

'I am set to light the ground, While the beetle goes his round: Follow now the beetle's hum; Little wanderer, hie thee home!'

ON ANOTHER'S SORROW

Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief,

Songs of Innocence and Experience