Today's Stichomancy for Eric Bana

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

and then sank slowly forward upon the table. His head rested upon his folded hands. He slipped into the unknown.

How long afterward conscious life returned to him he did not know. The blank might have been an hour or a century. He knew only that omething had happened in the interval. What is was he could not tell. He found great difficulty in catching the thread of his identity again.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe:

us with victuals.

*It seems John was in the tent, but hearing them call, he steps out, and taking the gun upon his shoulder, talked to them as if he had been the sentinel placed there upon the guard by some officer that was his superior. [Footnote in the original.]

Constable. We furnish you I What mean you by that?

John. Why, you would not have us starve, would you? If you stop us here, you must keep us.

Constable. You will be ill kept at our maintenance.

John. If you stint us, we shall make ourselves the better allowance.

Constable. Why, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by force,

A Journal of the Plague Year

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac:

against all trials. The blood flew to his face, and his eyes glared like the eyes of a wild cat. He started back with savage energy and a fierce growl that drew exclamations of alarm from the lodgers. At that leonine start the police caught at their pistols under cover of the general clamor. Collin saw the gleaming muzzles of the weapons, saw his danger, and instantly gave proof of a power of the highest order. There was something horrible and majestic in the spectacle of the sudden transformation in his face; he could only be compared to a cauldron full of the steam that can send mountains flying, a terrific force dispelled in a moment by a drop of cold water. The

Father Goriot

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 Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott:

Woodville Castle.

END OF THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER.

DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK by Sir Walter Scott.

[The manner in which this trifle was introduced at the time to Mr. F. M. Reynolds, editor of The Keepsake of 1828, leaves no occasion for a preface.]

AUGUST 1831.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE KEEPSAKE.

You have asked me, sir, to point out a subject for the pencil, and I feel the difficulty of complying with your request,