Today's Stichomancy for Peter Sellers

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith:

her head.

HASTINGS. But I dread the effects of her resentment, when she finds she has lost them.

TONY. Never you mind her resentment, leave ME to manage that. I don't value her resentment the bounce of a cracker. Zounds! here they are. Morrice! Prance! [Exit HASTINGS.]

Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE and MISS NEVILLE.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Indeed, Constance, you amaze me. Such a girl as you want jewels! It will be time enough for jewels, my dear, twenty years hence, when your beauty begins to want repairs.

MISS NEVILLE. But what will repair beauty at forty, will certainly

She Stoops to Conquer

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter:

an almanac, and felt Pigling's ribs; it was too late in the season for curing bacon, and he grudged his meal. Besides, the hens had seen this pig.

He looked at the small remains of a flitch [side of bacon], and then looked undecidedly at Pigling. "You

may sleep on the rug," said Mr. Peter Thomas Piperson.

Pigling Bland slept like a top. In

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke:

is carried close to the warmth of the beating heart.

Then, at last, while I was thinking of this pearl, and of its meaning, I heard the end of the story of the Other Wise Man.

Three-and-thirty years of the life of Artaban had passed away, and he was still a pilgrim and a seeker after light. His hair, once darker than the cliffs of Zagros, was now white as the wintry snow that covered them. His eyes, that once flashed like flames of fire, were dull as embers smouldering among the ashes.

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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo:

and private report of Chief of Police Angeles to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of Paris, terminated with these lines:--

"Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These are very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the Revolution. It is not dangerous.

Les Miserables