Today's Stichomancy for Duke of Wellington

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James:

They're the idol and the altar and the flame."

"Isn't there even ONE who sees further?" Paul continued.

For a moment St. George made no answer; after which, having torn up his letters, he came back to the point all ironic. "Of course I know the one you mean. But not even Miss Fancourt."

"I thought you admired her so much."

"It's impossible to admire her more. Are you in love with her?" St. George asked.

"Yes," Paul Overt presently said.

"Well then give it up."

Paul stared. "Give up my 'love'?"

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

Oth. Nay stay: thou should'st be honest

Iago. I should be wise; for Honestie's a Foole, And looses that it workes for

Oth. By the World, I thinke my Wife be honest, and thinke she is not: I thinke that thou art iust, and thinke thou art not: Ile haue some proofe. My name that was as fresh As Dians Visage, is now begrim'd and blacke As mine owne face. If there be Cords, or Kniues, Poyson, or Fire, or suffocating streames, Ile not indure it. Would I were satisfied

Othello

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]:

scarlet tanagers; the orioles with their marvellous notes, and the tanagers in their scarlet golfing coats glinting here and there in the sunshine. Nests everywhere, and Tattine on one long voyage of discovery, until she knew where at least twenty little bird families were going to crack-shell their way into life. But there was one little family of whose whereabouts she knew nothing, nor anyone else for that matter, until "Hark, what was that?"--Mabel and Rudolph and Tattine were running across the end of the porch, and it was Rudolph who brought them to a standstill.

"It's puppies under the piazza, that's what it is," declared Tattine; "where ever did they come from, and how ever do you suppose they got there?"

"I think it's a good deal more important to know how you'll ever get them

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 Ion by Plato:

they disagree?

ION: A prophet.

SOCRATES: And if you were a prophet, would you not be able to interpret them when they disagree as well as when they agree?

ION: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only, and not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak of the same themes which all other poets handle? Is not war his great argument? and does he not speak of human society and of intercourse of men, good and bad, skilled and unskilled, and of the gods conversing with one another and with mankind, and about what happens in heaven and in the world below, and the