Today's Stichomancy for Ben Affleck

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Of his cold-shouldered fellow men.

"And so, Llewellyn," I began -- "Not so," he said; "not so, at all: I've tried the world, and found it good, For more than twenty years this fall.

"And what the world has left of me Will go now in a little while." And what the world had left of him Was partly an unholy guile.

"That I have paid for being calm Is what you see, if you have eyes;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac:

woman than they are, and but for the respect which is due to them, I would use another word. Now we should never awaken the phantasy of this malevolent thing. The perfect government of woman is a task to rend a man's heart, and we are compelled to remain in perfect submission to them; that is, I imagine, the best manner in which to solve the most agonising enigma of marriage.

Now Marie d'Annebaut was delighted with the bearing and offers of this gallant; but there was something in her smile which indicated a malicious idea, and, to speak plainly, the intention of putting her young guardian between honour and pleasure; to regale him so with love, to surround him with so many little attentions, to pursue him

Droll Stories, V. 1

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert:

regarding the Phoenicians, who had been false to him, and his cowardly attitude towards the people who detested and insulted herself.

"But thou art like them!" she cried; "Dost regret the loss of the Arab girl who danced upon these very pavements? Take her back! Go and live with her--in her tent! Eat her bread, baked in the ashes! Drink curdled sheep's-milk! Kiss her dark cheeks--and forget me!"

The tetrarch had already forgotten her presence, it appeared. He paid no further heed to her anger, but looked intently at a young girl who had just stepped out upon the balcony of a house not far away. At her side stood an elderly female slave, who held over the girl's head a kind of parasol with a handle made of long, slender reeds. In the

Herodias

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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac:

style--I congratulate you! If the Baron had died, where should we be now?--When Lucien walks out of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin son-in-law to the Duc de Grandlieu, if you want to try a dip in the Seine---- Well, my beauty, I offer you my hand for a dive together. It is one way of ending matters.

"But consider a moment. Would it not be better to live and say to yourself again and again 'This fine fortune, this happy family'--for he will have children--children!--Have you ever thought of the joy of running your fingers through the hair of his children?"

Esther closed her eyes with a little shiver.

"Well, as you gaze on that structure of happiness, you may say to