Today's Stichomancy for Kirk Douglas

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis:

my fault that I am no better? My fault? My fault?"

He stopped, stung with a sudden remorse, seeing her hunchback shape writhing with sobs. For Deborah was crying thankless tears, according to the fashion of women.

"God forgi' me, woman! Things go harder Wi' you nor me. It's a worse share."

He got up and helped her to rise; and they went doggedly down the muddy street, side by side.

"It's all wrong," he muttered, slowly,--"all wrong! I dunnot understan'. But it'll end some day."

"Come home, Hugh!" she said, coaxingly; for he had stopped,

Life in the Iron-Mills

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze:

of his nature. A violent wind does not last for a whole morning; a sudden rain does not last for the whole day. To whom is it that these (two) things are owing? To Heaven and Earth. If Heaven and Earth cannot make such (spasmodic) actings last long, how much less can man!

2. Therefore when one is making the Tao his business, those who are also pursuing it, agree with him in it, and those who are making the manifestation of its course their object agree with him in that; while even those who are failing in both these things agree with him where they fail.

3. Hence, those with whom he agrees as to the Tao have the happiness of attaining to it; those with whom he agrees as to its manifestation

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott:

"I submit!" said Leopold indignantly--"I, the Archduke of Austria, so important and vital a limb of the Holy Roman Empire --I submit myself to this king of half an island, this grandson of a Norman bastard! No, by Heaven! The camp and all Christendom shall see that I know how to right myself, and whether I yield ground one inch to the English bandog.--Up, my lieges and merry men; up and follow me! We will--and that without losing one instant--place the eagle of Austria where she shall float as high as ever floated the cognizance of king or kaiser."

With that he started from his seat, and amidst the tumultuous

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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson:

sorts of things,--footfalls on successive steps, the creak of a plank, the brushing of an arm against a wall, the jar of some suspended object that was stirred in passing. Once they heard something fall on the floor, and roll from step to step; and yet they themselves stood on the stairway, and nothing passed. Then for some time there was silence, but they would have persisted in their observations, had not Philip come in from Mrs. Meredith's in the midst of it, so that the whole thing turned into a frolic, and they sat on the stairs and told ghost stories half the night.

XVII.