Today's Stichomancy for Laurence Fishburne

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

and being knocked down without being bid for.

SURFACE. Charles!

CHARLES. Joseph!

SURFACE. 'Tis compleat!

CHARLES. Very!

SIR OLIVER. Sir Peter--my Friend and Rowley too--look on that elder Nephew of mine--You know what He has already received from my Bounty and you know also how gladly I would have look'd on half my Fortune as held in trust for him--judge then my Disappointment in discovering him to be destitute of Truth--Charity--and Gratitude--

SIR PETER. Sir Oliver--I should be more surprized at this

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe:

and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall to the stairs which are there for landing or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or sea-wall, as they call it, by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the houses all shut up. At last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man; first I asked him how people did thereabouts. 'Alas, sir!' says he, 'almost desolate; all dead or sick. Here are very few families in this part, or in

A Journal of the Plague Year

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

and-blue for trying to scare me in this fashion!"

Angrily she raised her stick to smash in the grinning pumpkin head of the dummy; but a sudden thought made her pause, the uplifted stick left motionless in the air.

"Why, here is a good chance to try my new powder!" said she, eagerly. "And then I can tell whether that crooked wizard has fairly traded secrets, or whether he has fooled me as wickedly as I fooled him."

So she set down her basket and began fumbling in it for one of the precious powders she had obtained.

While Mombi was thus occupied Tip strolled back, with his pockets full of

The Marvelous Land of Oz

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 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson:

the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a few halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl's own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde