Today's Stichomancy for Natalie Portman

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke:

observe with gratitude that almost all of the pleasures that are connected with this pursuit--its accompaniments and variations, which run along with the tune and weave an embroidery of delight around it--have an accidental and gratuitous quality about them. They are not to be counted upon beforehand. They are like something that is thrown into a purchase by a generous and open-handed dealer, to make us pleased with our bargain and inclined to come back to the same shop.

If I knew, for example, before setting out for a day on the brook, precisely what birds I should see, and what pretty little scenes in the drama of woodland life were to be enacted before my eyes, the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie:

"You hid them?"

"Yes. I got uneasy. People seemed to be watching me. It scared me--badly." She put her hand to her head. "It's almost the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital...."

"Go on," said Sir James, in his quiet penetrating tones. "What do you remember?"

She turned to him obediently.

"It was at Holyhead. I came that way--I don't remember why...."

"That doesn't matter. Go on."

"In the confusion on the quay I slipped away. Nobody saw me. I took a car. Told the man to drive me out of the town. I watched

Secret Adversary

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard:

Only high up in the great spaces star doth speak unto star, The Earth is faint with longing and wet with the tears of her desire; The star-girdled night doth embrace her, but she is not comforted. She lies enshrouded in mists like a corpse in the grave-clothes, And stretches her pale hands to the East.

Lo! away in the farthest East there is the shadow of a light; The Earth seeth and lifts herself. She looks out from beneath the hollow of her hand. Then thy great angels fly forth from the Holy Place, oh Sun, They shoot their fiery swords into the darkness and shrivel it up. They climb the heavens and cast down the pale stars from their thrones;

Allan Quatermain

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 School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

books?

CHARLES. You must inquire of the auctioneer, Master Premium, for I don't believe even Moses can direct you.

MOSES. I know nothing of books.

SIR OLIVER. So, so, nothing of the family property left, I suppose?

CHARLES. Not much, indeed; unless you have a mind to the family pictures. I have got a room full of ancestors above: and if you have a taste for old paintings, egad, you shall have 'em a bargain!

SIR OLIVER. Hey! what the devil! sure, you wouldn't sell your forefathers, would you?

CHARLES. Every man of them, to the best bidder.