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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister:

"Is there something that you wish?" inquired Miss La Heu, always miraculously sweet.

"Some of your good things for lunch; a very little, if you will be so kind."

I had gone back to my table while the "very little" was being selected, and I felt, in spite of how slightly she counted me, that it would be in- adequate in me to remain completely dumb.

"Mr. Mayrant is still at the Custom House?" I observed.

"For a few days, yes. Happily we shall soon break that connection." And she smelt my flowers.

"'We,'" I thought to myself, "is rather tremendous."

It grew more tremendous in the silence as Eliza La Heu brought me my

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay:

even a minister to conduct the funerals. Thomas Lincoln made the coffins for the dead out of green lumber cut from the forest trees with a whip-saw, and they were laid to rest in a clearing in the woods. Months afterward, largely through the efforts of the sorrowing boy, a preacher who chanced to come that way was induced to hold a service and preach a sermon over the grave of Mrs. Lincoln.

Her death was indeed a serious blow to her husband and children. Abraham's sister, Sarah, was only eleven years old, and the tasks and cares of the little household were altogether too heavy for her years and experience. Nevertheless they struggled bravely

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde:

Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee, Its little bellringer, go seek instead Some other pleasaunce; the anemone That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it, - bid it pine In pale virginity; the winter snow Will suit it better than those lips of thine Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,

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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator:

SOCRATES: But how could we live in safety with so many crazy people? Should we not long since have paid the penalty at their hands, and have been struck and beaten and endured every other form of ill-usage which madmen are wont to inflict? Consider, my dear friend: may it not be quite otherwise?

ALCIBIADES: Why, Socrates, how is that possible? I must have been mistaken.

SOCRATES: So it seems to me. But perhaps we may consider the matter thus:--

ALCIBIADES: How?

SOCRATES: I will tell you. We think that some are sick; do we not?