Today's Stichomancy for Robin Williams

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke:

did, it had a very foreign sound. Everything about him was in harmony with it; he spoke and laughed and sang and thought and felt in French--the French of two hundred years ago, the language of Samuel de Champlain and the Sieur de Monts, touched with a strong woodland flavour. In short, my guide, philosopher, and friend, Pat, did not have a drop of Irish in him, unless, perhaps, it was a certain--well, you shall judge for yourself, when you have heard this story of his virtue, and the way it was rewarded.

It was on the shore of the Lac a la Belle Riviere, fifteen miles back from St. Gerome, that I came into the story, and found myself, as commonly happens in the real stories which life is always

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare:

ALL. Dan diddle dan.

CAPTAIN. The poorest state is farthest from annoy. How merrily he sitteth on his stool! But when he sees that needs he must be pressed, He'll turn his note and sing another tune. Ho, by your leave, master Cobbler.

STRUMBO. You are welcome, gentleman. What will you? any old shoes or buskins? or will you have your shoes

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

something more like General Joffre than any other single human figure I can think of or imagine.

If I were to set a frontispiece to a book about this War I would make General Joffre the frontispiece.

As we swung back along the dusty road to Paris at a pace of fifty miles an hour and upwards, driven by a helmeted driver with an aquiline profile fit to go upon a coin, whose merits were a little flawed by a childish and dangerous ambition to run over every cat he saw upon the road, I talked to de Tessin about this big blue-coated figure of Joffre, which is not so much a figure

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 Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac:

house of Monsieur de Montmorency, where they had been nourished with the good doctrines of this great Captain, and had shown how contagious is valour in such good company, for at the battle of Ravenna they merited the praises of the oldest knights. It was in the thick of this fierce fight that Maille, saved by the said Lavalliere, with whom he had had a quarrel or two, perceived that this gentleman had a noble heart. As they had each received slashes in the doublets, they baptised their fraternity with their blood, and were ministered to together in one and the same bed under the tent of Monsieur de Montmorency their master. It is necessary to inform you that, contrary to the custom of his family, which was always to have a pretty face,

Droll Stories, V. 1