Today's Stichomancy for Elisha Cuthbert

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber:

for that of a dozen of your ordinary so-called good men. All these years of work and suffering have made an old man of little Blackie, although he is young in years. But they haven't spoiled his heart any. He is able to distinguish between sham and truth because he has been obliged to do it ever since he was a child selling papers on the corner. But he still clings to the office that gave him his start, although he makes more money in a single week outside the office than his salary would amount to in half a year. He says that this is a job that does not interfere with his work."

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar:

acriter est ut a viris fortibus in extrema spe salutis iniquo loco contra eos qui ex vallo turribusque tela iacerent pugnari debuit, cum in una virtute omnis spes consisteret. Occisis ad hominum milibus IIII reliqui in oppidum reiecti sunt. Postridie eius diei refractis portis, cum iam defenderet nemo, atque intromissis militibus nostris, sectionem eius oppidi universa Caesar vendidit. Ab iis qui emerant capitum numerus ad eum relatus est milium LIII.

Eodem tempore a P. Crasso, quem cum legione una miserat ad Venetos, Venellos, Osismos, Coriosolitas, Esuvios, Aulercos, Redones, quae sunt maritimae civitates Oceanumque attingunt, certior factus est omnes eas civitates in dicionem potestatemque populi Romani esse redactas.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot:

it. . . . In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.

424. _V._ Weston, _From Ritual to Romance_; chapter on the Fisher King.

427. _V. Purgatorio_, xxvi. 148.

'Ara vos prec per aquella valor 'que vos guida al som de l'escalina, 'sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor.' Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina.

428. _V. Pervigilium Veneris_. Cf. Philomela in Parts II and III.

429. _V._ Gerard de Nerval, Sonnet _El Desdichado_.

431. _V._ Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_.

The Waste Land

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 The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

then the Growleywogs and the Phanfasms. By the time we Nomes get there the eggs will all be used up, and we may then pursue and capture the inhabitants at our leisure."

"Perhaps you are right," returned the King, with a dismal sigh. "But I want it distinctly understood that I claim Ozma and Dorothy as my own prisoners. They are rather nice girls, and I do not intend to let any of those dreadful creatures hurt them, or make them their slaves. When I have captured them I will bring them here and transform them into china ornaments to stand on my mantle. They will look very pretty--Dorothy on one end of the mantle and Ozma on the other--and I shall take great care to see they are not broken when the maids dust them."

The Emerald City of Oz