Today's Stichomancy for Robert Downey Jr.

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe, was driven from the province by the whizzing of a musket-ball; a fourth, in the opinion of the same historian, was hastened to his grave by continual bickerings with the House of Representatives; and the remaining two, as well as their successors, till the Revolution, were favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway. The inferior members of the court party, in times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable life. These remarks may serve as a preface to the following adventures, which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years ago. The reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial

The Snow Image

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke:

the boat would barely float. Not a ray of unbroken sunlight leaked through the green roof of this winding corridor; and all along the sides there were delicate mosses and tall ferns and wildwood flowers that love the shade.

At the upper end of the bower our progress in the boat was barred by a low bridge, on a forgotten road that wound through the pine-woods. Here I left my lady Graygown, seated on the shady corner of the bridge with a book, swinging her feet over the stream, while I set out to explore its further course. Above the wood-road there were no more fairy dells, nor easy-going estuaries. The water came down through the most complicated piece of underbrush that I have ever

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare:

Dream of success and happy victory. Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.

Enter the GHOST of BUCKINGHAM

GHOST. [To RICHARD] The first was I that help'd thee to the crown; The last was I that felt thy tyranny. O, in the battle think on Buckingham, And die in terror of thy guiltiness! Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death; Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath! [To RICHMOND] I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;

Richard III

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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac:

to his wife:--

"What are you thinking of, my dear?"

"The smell of the incense turns me sick," she replied.

"It is particularly bad to-day?" he asked.

In spite of this sarcastic query, the wily old man pretended to believe in this excuse; but he suspected some treachery and he resolved to watch his treasure more carefully than before.

The benediction was given. Without waiting for the end of the "Soecula soeculorum," the crowd rushed like a torrent to the doors of the church. Following his usual custom, the old seigneur waited till the general hurry was over; after which he left his chapel, placing the