Today's Stichomancy for Jon Stewart

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac:

white as snow and Pierrette an evilly disposed little girl, a serpent warmed in their bosom.

In Madame Tiphaine's salon vengeance was had for all the mischievous scandals that the Vinet party had disseminated for the past two years. The Rogrons were monsters, and the guardian should undergo a criminal trial. In the Lower town, Pierrette was quite well; in the Upper town she was dying; at the Rogrons' she scratched her wrist; at Madame Tiphaine's her fingers were fractured and one was to be cut off. The next day the "Courrier de Provins," had a plausible article, extremely well-written, a masterpiece of insinuations mixed with legal points, which showed that there was no case whatever against Rogron. The "Bee-

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley:

must teach them - and we can teach them - to find wonder in every insect, sublimity in every hedgerow, the records of past worlds in every pebble, and boundless fertility upon the barren shore; and so, by teaching them to make full use of that limited sphere in which they now are, make them faithful in a few things, that they may be fit hereafter to be rulers over much.

I may seem to exaggerate the advantages of such studies; but the question after all is one of experience: and I have had experience enough and to spare that what I say is true. I have seen the young man of fierce passions, and uncontrollable daring, expend healthily that energy which threatened daily to plunge him into recklessness,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

father was that of the son.

Even to the famous fighting smile of the Virginian was the resemblance true. And the sword arm! Ah, the subtleness of it, and the speed!

All about was turmoil and confusion. Green warriors were leaping to the backs of their restive, squealing thoats. Calots were growling out their savage gutturals, whining to be at the throats of the oncoming foemen.

Thar Ban and another by the side of the rostrum had been the first to note the coming of Carthoris, and it was with them he battled for possession of the red girl,

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

More than all orators. And so, my dear, Since you have cheated wisdom for the sake Of sorrow, let your sorrow be for you, This last of nights before the last of days, The lying ghost of what there is of me That is the most alive. There is no death For me in what they do. Their death it is They should heed most when the sun comes again To make them solemn. There are some I know Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation, For tears in them -- and all for one old man;