Today's Stichomancy for Oprah Winfrey

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

Mexican such a weakling, so like a tumbled tenpin, that the shrill jabbering hushed. Gale knew this to be the significant moment.

Wheeling, he rushed at Rojas. It was his old line-breaking plunge. Neither Rojas nor his men had time to move. The black-skinned bandit's face turned a dirty white; his jaw dropped; he would have shrieked if Gale had not hit him. The blow swept him backward against his men. Then Gale's heavy body, swiftly following with the momentum of that rush, struck the little group of rebels. They went down with table and chairs in a sliding crash.

Gale carried by his plunge, went with them. Like a cat he landed on top. As he rose his powerful hands fastened on Rojas. He

Desert Gold

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther:

primping and preening to continue without cost.

And again, you know that there is not a single passage from God demanding us to call upon either saints or angels to intercede for us, and that there is no example of such in the Scriptures. One finds that the beloved angels spoke with the fathers and the prophets, but that none of them had ever been asked to intercede for them. Why even Jacob the patriarch did not ask the angel with whom he wrestled for any intercession. Instead, he only took from him a blessing. In fact, on finds the very opposite in revelation as the angel will not allow itself to be worshipped by John. [Rev. 22] So the worship of saints shows itself as nothing but human

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius:

To grow all hollow with a thickened crust Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force And the keen onset of the wind have weakened That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain, Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom. No marvel this; since oft a bladder small, Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst, Give forth a like large sound. There's reason, too, Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds: We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds

Of The Nature of Things

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 A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac:

four hours to myself between six and ten o'clock.'

"Maxime looked through the directory, and found the following reassuring item:

"DENISART,* retired custom-house officer, Rue de la Victoire.

"His uneasiness vanished.

"Gradually the Sieur Denisart and the Sieur Croizeau began to exchange confidences. Nothing so binds two men together as a similarity of views in the matter of womankind. Daddy Croizeau went to dine with 'M. Denisart's fair lady,' as he called her. And here I must make a somewhat important observation.

"The reading-room had been paid for half in cash, half in bills signed