Today's Stichomancy for Chow Yun Fat

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris:

one of the Sieppes most cherished customs; but now there were other considerations.

"I don't know as we can afford it this month, Mac," she said, pouring the chocolate. "I got to pay the gas bill next week, and there's the papering of your office to be paid for some time."

"I know, I know," answered her husband. "But I got a new patient this week, had two molars and an upper incisor filled at the very first sitting, and he's going to bring his children round. He's a barber on the next block."

"Well you pay half, then," said Trina. "It'll cost three or

McTeague

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

Mr. Thoburn stopped in long enough to say: "What's this I hear about Carter making an ass of himself to-day?"

"I haven't heard it," I answered. "What is it?"

But he only laughed and turned up his collar to go.

"Jove, Minnie," he said, "why do women of your spirit always champion the losing side? Be a good girl; give me a hand now and then with this thing, and I'll see you don't lose by it."

"We're not going to lose," I retorted angrily. "Nobody has left yet. We are still ahead on the books."

He came over and shook a finger in my face.

"Nobody has left--and why? Because they're all taking a series

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry:

play I 'Sol Haytosser' you will have to convince Miss Carrington. Luck be with you."

Highsmith took the train the next day for Cran- berry Corners. He remained in that forsaken and inanimate village three days. He found the Boggs family and corkscrewed their history unto the third and fourth generation. He amassed the facts and the local color of Cranberry Corners. The village had not grown as rapidly as had Miss Carrington. The actor estimated that it had suffered as few actual changes since the departure of its solitary follower

The Voice of the City

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 Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

it, but deem himself the same man as ever; glimpses of the truth indeed. would come, but only for the moment; and still he would keep saying, "I shall soon go back!"--nor reflect that he had been saying so for twenty years.

I conceive, also, that these twenty years would appear, in the retrospect, scarcely longer than the week to which Wakefield had at first limited his absence. He would look on the affair as no more than an interlude in the main business of his life. When, after a little while more, he should deem it time to reenter his parlor, his wife would clap her hands for joy, on beholding the middle-aged Mr. Wakefield. Alas, what a mistake! Would Time but

Twice Told Tales