Today's Stichomancy for Scarlett Johansson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton:

What we, not to explore the secrets ask Of his eternal empire, but the more To magnify his works, the more we know. And the great light of day yet wants to run Much of his race though steep; suspense in Heaven, Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears, And longer will delay to hear thee tell His generation, and the rising birth Of Nature from the unapparent Deep: Or if the star of evening and the moon Haste to thy audience, Night with her will bring,

Paradise Lost

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac:

As the three ground out the music of the square dance, I gazed at the old Venetian noble, thinking thoughts that set a young man's mind afire at the age of twenty. I saw Venice and the Adriatic; I saw her ruin in the ruin of the face before me. I walked to and fro in that city, so beloved of her citizens; I went from the Rialto Bridge, along the Grand Canal, and from the Riva degli Schiavoni to the Lido, returning to St. Mark's, that cathedral so unlike all others in its sublimity. I looked up at the windows of the Casa Doro, each with its different sculptured ornaments; I saw old palaces rich in marbles, saw all the wonders which a student beholds with the more sympathetic eyes because visible things take their color of his fancy, and the sight of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini:

"Not looked to do so, Your Gr... Majesty!" he echoed, plainly not understanding, and it was observed that he stumbled over the Duke's new title.

"We had imagined that the pleasures of the town were claiming your entire attention."

Wilding looked from one to the other of the men before him, and on the face of all he saw a gravity that amounted to disapproval of him.

"The pleasures of the town?" said he, frowning, and again - "the pleasures of the town? There is something in this that I fear I do not understand."

"Do you bring us news that London has risen?" asked Grey suddenly.

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 Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

mark her course as the swift current bore her outward into the ocean. Before daylight broke the ebb-tide would have carried the Kincaid well into the Benguela current which flows northward along the coast of Africa, and, as a south wind was prevailing, Jane hoped to be out of sight of the mouth of the Ugambi before Rokoff could become aware of the departure of the steamer.

Standing over the labouring seamen, the young woman breathed a sigh of relief as the last strand of the cable parted and she knew that the vessel was on its way out of the maw of the savage Ugambi.

The Beasts of Tarzan