Today's Stichomancy for Dean Martin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen:

reverse of all that she had been before.

For two days Mrs. Morland allowed it to pass even without a hint; but when a third night's rest had neither restored her cheerfulness, improved her in useful activity, nor given her a greater inclination for needlework, she could no longer refrain from the gentle reproof of, "My dear Catherine, I am afraid you are growing quite a fine lady. I do not know when poor Richard's cravats would be done, if he had no friend but you. Your head runs too much upon Bath; but there is a time for everything--a time for balls and plays, and a time for work.

Northanger Abbey

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner:

some boiling on the kitchen fire."

The German made the proposal, but the widower waved his hand.

"No, nothing shall pass my lips. I should be suffocated. No, no! Speak not of food to me!"

"Pap, and a little brandy in," said Tant Sannie coaxingly.

Bonaparte caught the word.

"Perhaps, perhaps--if I struggled with myself--for the sake of my duties I might imbibe a few drops," he said, looking with quivering lip up into the German's face. "I must do my duty, must I not?"

Tant Sannie gave the order, and the girl went for the pap.

"I know how it was when my first husband died. They could do nothing with

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac:

one piece after another belong to the small number of things which it is not lawful to utter; words are powerless to express them; like death, God, eternity, they can only be realised through their one point of contact with humanity. Strangely enough, the organ music seemed to belong to the school of Rossini, the musician who brings most human passion into his art.

Some day his works, by their number and extent, will receive the reverence due to the Homer of music. From among all the scores that we owe to his great genius, the nun seemed to have chosen Moses in Egypt for special study, doubtless because the spirit of sacred music finds therein its supreme expression. Perhaps the

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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn:

And this day-magic of azure endures sometimes for months together. Cloudlessly the dawn reddens up through a violet east:

there is no speck upon the blossoming of its Mystical Rose,--unless it be the silhouette of some passing gull, whirling his sickle-wings against the crimsoning. Ever, as the sun floats higher, the flood shifts its color. Sometimes smooth and gray, yet flickering with the morning gold, it is the vision of John,--the apocalyptic Sea of Glass mixed with fire;--again, with the growing breeze, it takes that incredible purple tint familiar mostly to painters of West Indian scenery;--once more, under the blaze of noon, it changes to a waste of broken emerald. With