Today's Stichomancy for Peter O'Toole

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger:

education may be observed in their most sinister but significant aspects.

The forgotten fact in this case is that efforts for universal and compulsory education cannot keep pace with the overproduction of children. Even at the best, leaving out of consideration the public school system as the inevitable prey and plundering-ground of the cheap politician and job-hunter, present methods of wholesale and syndicated ``education'' are not suited to compete with the unceasing, unthinking, untiring procreative powers of our swarming, spawning populations.

Into such schools as described in the recent reports of the Public

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry:

commanded his vizier to dole him out a couple of thousand ten-dollar notes of the First National Bank of the Bosphorus, or else gave him a soft job as Keeper of the Bird Seed for the Bulbuls in the Imperial Gardens. If the story was a cracker-jack, he had Mesrour, the executioner, whack of his head. The report that Haroun Al Raschid is yet alive and is editing the magazine that your grandmother used to subscribe for lacks confirmation.

And now follows the Story of the Millionaire, the Inefficacious Increment, and the Babes Drawn from the Wood.

Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money ornithologically. He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on the ground floor at the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon:

passed in council, the People can readily shift the blame from its own shoulders. "A handful of oligarchs[22] acting against the interests of the People have ruined us." But if any good result ensue, they, the People, at once take the credit of that to themselves.

[21] Reading {uph otououn adikeitai onomati upo ton oligon}, which I suggest as a less violent emendation of this corrupt passage than any I have seen; or, reading with Sauppe, {uph otou adikei anomeitai apo ton oligon}, "the illegality lies at the door of."

[22] Or, "a few insignificant fellows."

In the same spirit it is not allowed to caricature on the comic stage[23] or otherwise libel the People, because[24] they do not care

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 Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne:

THE GREAT EXPLOSION AND THE RUSH DOWN BELOW

The next day, Thursday, August 27, is a well-remembered date in our subterranean journey. It never returns to my memory without sending through me a shudder of horror and a palpitation of the heart. From that hour we had no further occasion for the exercise of reason, or judgment, or skill, or contrivance. We were henceforth to be hurled along, the playthings of the fierce elements of the deep.

At six we were afoot. The moment drew near to clear a way by blasting through the opposing mass of granite.

I begged for the honour of lighting the fuse. This duty done, I was to join my companions on the raft, which had not yet been unloaded;

Journey to the Center of the Earth