Today's Stichomancy for Hugh Grant

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis:

Ah, Youth! we dallied by the babbling wells Where April all her lyric secret tells;-- Ah, Song! we sped our bold imaginings As far as yon red planet's triple rings;-- O Life! O Love! I followed, followed thee! There waits one word to end my journeyings: "Lo, I am Death; I bid thee follow me!"

DREAMS AND DUST

SELVES

My dust in ruined Babylon Is blown along the level plain,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad:

nothing to prevent him going up the river at night.

"Captain C---- knows this river like his own pocket," I concluded, discursively, trying to get on terms.

"Better," said Almayer.

Leaning over the rail of the bridge, I looked at Almayer, who looked down at the wharf in aggrieved thought. He shuffled his feet a little; he wore straw slippers with thick soles. The morning fog had thickened considerably. Everything round us dripped--the derricks, the rails, every single rope in the ship--as if a fit of crying had come upon the universe.

Almayer again raised his head and, in the accents of a man

A Personal Record

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson:

appreciate their greatness."

I have set down these private passages, as you perceive, without correction; thanks to you, the public has them in their bluntness. They are almost a list of the man's faults, for it is rather these that I was seeking: with his virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, I and the world were already sufficiently acquainted. I was besides a little suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no ill sense, but merely because Damien's admirers and disciples were the least likely to be critical. I know you will be more suspicious still; and the facts set down above were one and all collected from the lips of Protestants who had opposed the father in his life.

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 Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare:

Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?

PEDANT. Sir, at the farthest for a week or two; But then up farther, and as far as Rome; And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.

TRANIO. What countryman, I pray?

PEDANT. Of Mantua.

TRANIO. Of Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid,

The Taming of the Shrew