Today's Stichomancy for Christie Brinkley

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James:

still young and had not seen much of the world - his English years had been properly arid; therefore the reversed conventions of the Moreens - for they had THEIR desperate proprieties - struck him as topsy-turvy. He had encountered nothing like them at Oxford; still less had any such note been struck to his younger American ear during the four years at Yale in which he had richly supposed himself to be reacting against a Puritan strain. The reaction of the Moreens, at any rate, went ever so much further. He had thought himself very sharp that first day in hitting them all off in his mind with the "cosmopolite" label. Later it seemed feeble and colourless - confessedly helplessly provisional.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister:

grapes, with several sorts of figs and plums, and preserved fruits, and white and red wine--the white fifty years old. Beneath the quiet shining of candles, fresh-cut flowers leaned from vessels of old Mexican and Spanish make.

There at one end of this feast sat the wild, pastoral, gaudy company, speaking little over their food; and there at the other the pale Padre, questioning his visitor about Rachel. The mere name of a street would bring memories crowding to his lips; and when his guest told him of a new play he was ready with old quotations from the same author. Alfred de Vigny they spoke of, and Victor Hugo, whom the Padre disliked. Long after the dulce, or sweet dish, when it was the custom for the vaqueros and the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton:

exclaimed: "I ought to have thought of that sooner; I ought to have telegraphed yesterday! But I was sure I should hear from them today; and I wanted--oh, I DID so awfully want to stay!" She threw a troubled look at Darrow. "Do you happen to remember," she asked, "what time it was when you posted my letter?"

VII

Darrow was still standing on her threshold. As she put the question he entered the room and closed the door behind him.

His heart was beating a little faster than usual and he had no clear idea of what he was about to do or say, beyond the

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 Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac:

dung of cattle the road that crossed that desert, now descending towards the sea, then rising landward according to either the fall of the ground or the necessity of rounding some breastwork of rock. By mid-day, we were only half way.

"We will stop to rest over there," I said, pointing to a promontory of rocks sufficiently high to make it probable we should find a grotto.

The fisherman, who heard me and saw the direction in which I pointed, shook his head, and said,--

"Some one is there. All those who come from the village of Batz to Croisic, or from Croisic to Batz, go round that place; they never pass it."