Today's Stichomancy for Hugh Grant

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman:

the growing girls, the special teachers. She picked out books for me to read. She always seemed to understand just what I wanted to know, and how to give it to me.

While Terry and Alima struck sparks and parted--he always madly drawn to her and she to him--she must have been, or she'd never have stood the way he behaved--Ellador and I had already a deep, restful feeling, as if we'd always had one another. Jeff and Celis were happy; there was no question of that; but it didn't seem to me as if they had the good times we did.

Well, here is the Herland child facing life--as Ellador tried to show it to me. From the first memory, they knew Peace,

Herland

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair:

In so far as Billy Sunday is trying to keep the neglected youth of our streets from drinking, gambling and whoring, no one could wish him anything but success; but his besotted ignorance, his childish crudity of mind, make it impossible that he could have any success except of a delusive nature. He is utterly devoid of a social sense; utterly unaware of the existence of the forces of capitalism which are causing depravity ten times as fast as all the evangelists in creation can remedy it. So he is precisely like the Catholics with their "charity", cleaning up loathsome and unsightly messes for a thousand years, and never stopping to ask why such messes continue to come into existence.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn:

lack rice,-- nor any cups which never lack wine. It is not true that sorrow and death never enter Horai;-- neither is it true that there is not any winter. The winter in Horai is cold;-- and winds then bite to the bone; and the heaping of snow is monstrous on the roofs of the Dragon-King.

Nevertheless there are wonderful things in Horai; and the most wonderful of all has not been mentioned by any Chinese writer. I mean the atmosphere of Horai. It is an atmosphere peculiar to the place; and, because of it, the sunshine in Horai is whiter than any other sunshine,-- a milky light that never dazzles,-- astonishingly clear, but very soft. This atmosphere is not of our human period: it is enormously old,-- so old that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is;-- and it is not a mixture of

Kwaidan

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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac:

the species Duke. He recognizes none but the women who have been presented at court. Pray excuse him, he was one of Napoleon's creations.

"Madame Firmiani? surely she used to sing at the Opera-house." Species Ninny. The individuals of this species have an answer for everything. They will tell lies sooner than say nothing.

Two old ladies, wives of former magistrates: The First (wears a cap with bows, her face is wrinkled, her nose sharp, voice hard, carries a prayer-book in her hand): "What was that Madame Firmiani's maiden name?"--The Second (small face red as a crab-apple, gentle voice): "She was a Cadignan, my dear, niece of the old Prince de Cadignan,