Today's Stichomancy for James Gandolfini

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey:

insufficient to relieve their joy at what they considered the fall and humiliation of the tyrant Monty.

The Englishman stood there and watched then in amused consternation. They baffled his understanding. Plain it was to Madeline and her friends that Castleton had told the simple truth. But never on the earth, or anywhere else, could Nels and his comrades have been persuaded that Castleton had not lied deliberately to humble their great exponent of Ananias.

Everybody seemed reluctant to break the camp-fire spell. The logs had burned out to a great heap of opal and gold and red coals, in the heart of which quivered a glow alluring to the

The Light of Western Stars

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic:

and the thing works itself. You do see it, don't you?"

"I see well enough the things that are to be seen," replied Semple, with a certain brevity of manner. "There was a sermon of my father's that I remember, and it had for its text, 'We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.'"

Thorpe, pondering this for a moment, nodded his head. "Semple," he said, bringing his chair forward to the desk, "that's what I've come for. I want to spread my cards on the table for you. I know the sum you've laid out already, in working this thing. We'll say that that is to be paid

The Market-Place

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving:

out a paper and dashed his pen through it, presumably as an acknowledgment of the liquidation of the Professor's debt. Having communicated this intelligence to the somewhat astonished gentleman, Webster left him as abruptly as he had come.

Another relative of Dr. Parkman, his nephew, Mr. Parkman Blake, in the course of inquiries as to his uncle's fate, thought it right to see Webster. Accordingly he went to the college on Monday, the 26th, about eleven o'clock in the morning. Though not one of his lecture days, the janitor Littlefield informed him that the Professor was in his room. The door of the lecture--

room, however, was found to be locked, and it was only after

A Book of Remarkable Criminals

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 Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard:

Waterbury till spring. He would not decide about taking a house in New York till then; by that time his brother might return, and if possible we would go to Europe for a few months. I acquiesced in all his plans. Indeed I was not consulted; but I was happy--happy in him, and happy in every thing.

The winter passed in waiting for him to come to Waterbury every Saturday; and in the enjoyment of the two days he passed with me. In March Aunt Eliza wrote me that Lemorne was beaten! Van Horn had taken up the whole contents of his snuff-box in her house the evening before in amazement at the turn things had taken.

That night I dreamed of the scene in the hotel at Newport. I