Today's Stichomancy for Laurence Olivier

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

By substituting lath and plaster? With plan and two-foot rule in hand, He by the foreman took his stand, With boisterous voice, with eagle glance To stamp upon extravagance. For thrift of bricks and greed of guilders, He was the Buonaparte of Builders.

The foreman, a desponding creature, Demurred to here and there a feature: 'For surely, sir - with your permeession - Bricks here, sir, in the main parteetion. . . . '

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare:

Here is the head of the deceased Cromwell.

BEDFORD. Pray thee, go hence, and bear his head away Unto his body; inter them both in clay.

[Enter Sir Ralph Sadler.]

SADLER. Ho now, my Lords: what, is Lord Cromwell dead?

BEDFORD. Lord Cromwell's body now doth want a head.

SADLER. O God! a little speed had saved his life.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft:

fungi it is muttered that they have also a slight taste for meat, either physical or spiritual, for certainly many dreamers have entered that wood who have not come out. Carter, however, had no fear; for he was an old dreamer and had learnt their fluttering language and made many a treaty with them; having found through their help the splendid city of Celephais in Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, where reigns half the year the great King Kuranes, a man he had known by another name in life. Kuranes was the one soul who had been to the star-gulls and returned free from madness. Threading now the low phosphorescent aisles between

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

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 Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn:

the evolution of aggressive power, or working-capacity.]

Of the true females,-- the Mothers-Elect,-- there are very few indeed; and these are treated like queens. So constantly and so reverentially are they waited upon that they can seldom have any wishes to express. They are relieved from every care of existence,-- except the duty of bearing offspring. Night and day they are cared for in every possible manner. They alone are superabundantly and richly fed:-- for the sake of the offspring they must eat and drink and repose right royally; and their physiological specialization allows of such indulgence ad libitum. They seldom go out, and never unless attended by a powerful escort; as they cannot be permitted to incur unnecessary fatigue or danger. Probably they have no great desire

Kwaidan