Today's Stichomancy for Clyde Barrow

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry:

rhythmic protest. The beautiful dinner, the pearl of a dinner, the little excellent superb jewel of a dinner! But one moment more of waiting and not even the thousand thunders of black pigs of the quarter would touch it!

"They are a little late," said Grandemont, calmly. "They will come soon. Tell Andre to hold back dinner. And ask him if, by some chance, a bull from the pastures has broken, roaring, into the house."

He seated himself again to his cigarettes. Though he had said it, he scarcely believed Charleroi would entertain company that night. For the first time in history the invitation of a Charles had been ignored. So simple in courtesy and honour was Grandemont, and,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac:

with M. d'Ajuda-Pinto made so much noise?" asked Gaston of his neighbor.

"The very same," he was told. "She came to Courcelles after the marriage of the Marquis d'Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, besides, too much sense not to see that she is in a false position, so she has made no attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a few gentlemen went to call upon her, but she would see no one but M. de Champignelles, perhaps because he is a connection of the family. They are related through the Beauseants; the father of the present Vicomte married a Mlle. de Champignelles of the older branch. But though the Vicomtesse de Beauseant is supposed to be a descendant of the House of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman:

will be fit to eat. And, Benny dear, if you don't mind, please get the butter and the cream-pitcher out of the ice-chest. I have everything else on the table."

"There is another thing," said Benny. "I don't go about telling tales, but I do think it is time you knew. The girls tell everybody that you like to do the housework so much that they don't dare inter- fere. And it isn't so. They may have taught them- selves to think it is so, but it isn't. You would like a little time for fancy-work and reading as well as

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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James:

she felt bereft of the satisfaction his solemn trust was to have provided her. They both missed the rich future, but she missed it most, because after all it was to have been entirely hers; and it was her acceptance of the loss that gave him the full measure of her preference for the thought of Acton Hague over any other thought whatever. He had humour enough to laugh rather grimly when he said to himself: "Why the deuce does she like him so much more than she likes me?" - the reasons being really so conceivable. But even his faculty of analysis left the irritation standing, and this irritation proved perhaps the greatest misfortune that had ever overtaken him. There had been nothing yet that made him so much