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 The Coxon Fund by Henry James:

to congratulate him. "On my election?" he asked after a moment; so that I could feign, jocosely, not to have heard of that triumph and to be alluding to the rumour of a victory still more personal. I dare say I coloured however, for his political success had momentarily passed out of my mind. What was present to it was that he was to marry that beautiful girl; and yet his question made me conscious of some discomposure--I hadn't intended to put this before everything. He himself indeed ought gracefully to have done so, and I remember thinking the whole man was in this assumption that in expressing my sense of what he had won I had fixed my thoughts on his "seat." We straightened the matter out, and he was

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon:

"The skunk I called my daddy," Jim went on thoughtfully, "took me to New York. He said that my mother deserted me when I was a kid. I believed him at first. But when he beat me and kicked me into the streets, I knew he was a liar. When I got grown I began to think and wonder about her. I hired a lawyer that knew my daddy, and he found her here----"

With a cry of joy, she seized his arms:

"Tell her quick! Oh, you're big and fine and generous, Jim--and I knew it! They said that you were a brute. I knew they lied. Tell her quick!"

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri:

himself.''

Of all the positive school, Garofalo has insisted most strongly on these ideas, enlarging upon them in various proposals for the practical reform of procedure.

The principle has made further progress since the speech of M. Fioretti at the first Congress of Criminal Anthropology (Rome, 1885), which adopted the resolution brought forward by MM. Ferri, Fioretti, and Venezian: ``The Congress, being convinced of the importance of providing for civil indemnification, in the immediate interest, not only of the injured party, but also of preventive and repressive social defence, is of opinion that

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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac:

aloud; "it is because their friends have willed it--I wash my hands of the affair."

He had led the abbe to a part of the garden which lay in the moonlight, and as he said the last words he looked at him suddenly. The priest was greatly distressed, but his manner was that of a man surprised and wholly ignorant.

"Understand this, monsieur l'abbe," resumed Corentin; "the right of these young men to the estate of Gondreville will render them doubly criminal in the eyes of the middle class. I'd like to see them put faith in God and not in his saints--"

"Is there really a plot?" asked the abbe, simply.