Today's Stichomancy for Michael York

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

Teuton draw the simplicity which disarms suspicion--the perennial supplies with which he fertilizes his labors in every field of science, art, or commerce. A crafty Frenchman here and there will turn a Parisian tradesman's stupidity to good account in the same way. But Schmucke had kept his child's simplicity much as Pons continued to wear his relics of the Empire--all unsuspectingly. The true and noble- hearted German was at once the theatre and the audience, making music within himself for himself alone. In this city of Paris he lived as a nightingale lives among the thickets; and for twenty years he sang on, mateless, till he met with a second self in Pons. [See /Une Fille d'Eve/.]

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith:

all know it. It's that loafer, Dennis Quigg, and that old sneak, Crimmins. They never lifted their hands on a decent job in their lives, an' don't want to. When my man Jack was out of work for four months last winter, and there wasn't a pail of coal in the house, wasn't Quigg gittin' his four dollars a day for shootin' off his mouth every night at O'Leary's, an' fillin' the men's heads full of capital and rights? An' Dan McGaw's no better. If ye're out for jumpin' on people, Mrs. Moriarty, begin with Quigg an' some of the bummers as is runnin' the Union, an' as gits paid whether the men works or not."

"Bedad, ye're roight," said half a dozen women, the tide turning

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

BURR

Hamilton, if he rides you down, remember That I was here to speak, and so to save Your fabric from catastrophe. That's good; For I perceive that you observe him also. A President, a-riding of his horse, May dust a General and be forgiven; But why be dusted -- when we're all alike, All equal, and all happy. Here he comes -- And there he goes. And we, by your new patent, Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside,

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 Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw:

That was behaving rather like a navvy. Now I, like Napoleon, am not all one piece. On occasion, as you have all seen, I can behave like a gentleman. On occasion, I can behave with a brutal simplicity which Miss Tarleton herself could hardly surpass.

TARLETON. Gentleman or no gentleman, Patsy: what are your intentions?

HYPATIA. My intentions! Surely it's the gentleman who should be asked his intentions.

TARLETON. Come now, Patsy! none of that nonsense. Has Mr Percival said anything to you that I ought to know or that Bentley ought to know? Have you said anything to Mr Percival?