Today's Stichomancy for Matt Damon

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson:

in that high sphere to which you have been called, it will be none the worse, sir, for an old man's blessing!'

The scene had almost assumed the proportions of an ovation; and when the Prince escaped he had but one thought: to go wherever he was most sure of praise. His conduct at the board of council occurred to him as a fair chapter; and this evoked the memory of Gotthold. To Gotthold he would go.

Gotthold was in the library as usual, and laid down his pen, a little angrily, on Otto's entrance. 'Well,' he said, 'here you are.'

'Well,' returned Otto, 'we made a revolution, I believe.'

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome:

of Professor Struhve. They do not particularly like the Communists. They principally want to be left alone, and they principally fear any enforced continuation of war of any kind. If, in the course of time, they come to have a definite political programme, I think it not impossible that they may turn into a new kind of constitutional democrat. That does not mean that they will have any use for M. Milukov or for a monarch with whom M. Milukov might be ready to supply them. The Constitution for which they will work will be that very Soviet Constitution which is now in abeyance, and the democracy which they associate with it will be that form of democracy which were it to be

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson:

the hour from the interior of the house.

"In a moment," replied John Vandeleur.

And, with that, he threw away the stump and, taking up the lantern, sailed away under the verandah for the night. As soon as the door was closed, absolute darkness fell upon the house; Francis might try his eyesight as much as he pleased, he could not detect so much as a single chink of light below a blind; and he concluded, with great good sense, that the bed-chambers were all upon the other side.

Early the next morning (for he was early awake after an uncomfortable night upon the floor), he saw cause to adopt a

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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare:

Alas, how shall this bloody deede be answered? It will be laide to vs, whose prouidence Should haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt, This mad yong man. But so much was our loue, We would not vnderstand what was most fit, But like the Owner of a foule disease, To keepe it from divulging, let's it feede Euen on the pith of life. Where is he gone? Qu. To draw apart the body he hath kild, O're whom his very madnesse like some Oare Among a Minerall of Mettels base

Hamlet