Today's Stichomancy for W. C. Fields

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde:

O noble pilot, tell me true, Is that the sheen of golden hair? Or is it but the tangled dew That binds the passion-flowers there? Good sailor come and tell me now Is that my Lady's lily hand? Or is it but the gleaming prow, Or is it but the silver sand?

No! no! 'tis not the tangled dew, 'Tis not the silver-fretted sand, It is my own dear Lady true

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas:

to Rosa Gryphus three bulbs, which I am convinced must produce, in the next May, the Grand Black Tulip for which a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has been offered by the Haarlem Society, requesting that she may be paid the same sum in my stead, as my sole heiress, under the only condition of her marrying a respectable young man of about my age, who loves her, and whom she loves, and of her giving the black tulip, which will constitute a new species, the name of Rosa Barlaensis, that is to say, hers and mine combined.

"So may God grant me mercy, and to her health and long life!

The Black Tulip

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac:

venture forth to masked balls; they take journeys into the provinces; they turn out well dressed on the boulevards when the weather is fine. And then they find in each other the devoted kindness which is known only among proscribed races. It costs a woman in luck no effort to bestow some help, for she says to herself, "I may be in the same plight by Sunday!"

However, the most efficient protector still is the purchaser of dress. When this greedy money-lender finds herself the creditor, she stirs and works on the hearts of all the old men she knows in favor of the mortgaged creature in thin boots and a fine bonnet.

In this way Madame du Val-Noble, unable to foresee the downfall of one

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 Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer:

sleeping in it, there were no evidences of the extraordinary invasion mentioned by the drugged man. It was a small room-- the chambers were of that kind which are let furnished--and very neat. A safe with a combination lock stood in a corner. The window was open about a foot at the top. Smith tried the safe and found it fast. He stood for a moment clicking his teeth together, by which I knew him to be perplexed. He walked over to the window and threw it up. We both looked out.

"You see," came Weymouth's voice, "it is altogether too far from the court below for our cunning Chinese friends to have fixed a ladder with one of their bamboo rod arrangements. And, even if they could

The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu