Today's Stichomancy for Jerry Lewis

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

[Soldiers bring the body forward.]

WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft.-- Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?-- Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life, And he nor sees nor hears us, what we say.

RICHARD. O, would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth; 'T is but his policy to counterfeit, Because he would avoid such bitter taunts Which in the time of death he gave our father.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce:

Wherewith all matters here below Are ordered, and observed the throw; Then bent His head in awful state, Confirming the decree of Fate. From every part of earth anew The conscious dust consenting flew, While rivers from their courses rolled To make it plastic for the mould. Enough collected (but no more, For niggard Nature hoards her store) He kneaded it to flexible clay,

The Devil's Dictionary

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells:

was rimmed with red.

Suddenly I heard a thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round, sprang to my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickering threads of blood-red flame. Then the thatched roof caught. I saw the curving charge of the flames across the sloping straw. A spurt of fire jetted from the window of my room.

I knew at once what had happened. I remembered the crash I had heard. When I had rushed out to Montgomery's assistance, I had overturned the lamp.

The Island of Doctor Moreau

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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac:

descended to the soul! At this moment, the sun, sympathizing with these thoughts of love and of the future, had cast an ardent glow upon the savage flanks of the rock; a few wild mountain flowers were visible; the stillness and the silence magnified that rugged pile,-- really sombre, though tinted by the dreamer, and beautiful beneath its scanty vegetation, the warm chamomile, the Venus' tresses with their velvet leaves. Oh, lingering festival; oh, glorious decorations; oh, happy exaltation of human forces! Once already the lake of Brienne had spoken to me thus. The rock of Croisic may be perhaps the last of these my joys. If so, what will become of Pauline?

"Have you had a good catch to-day, my man?" I said to the fisherman.