Today's Stichomancy for Will Smith

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain:

he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a feeble confidence.

He left the presence too miserable to even feel re- vengeful toward Sid; and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was unnecessary. He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging, along with Joe Harper, for playing hookey the day before, with the air of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to trifles. Then he betook him- self to his seat, rested his elbows on his desk and his jaws in his hands, and stared at the wall with the stony

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

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

rehearsed a modern version of the scene in which Sosie describes the battle to his lantern. To my shame be it said, I had thought at first of nothing but the part that _I_ was to play, of my own cleverness, of how I should demean myself; but now that I was in the country, an ominous thought flashed through my soul like a thunderbolt tearing its way through a veil of gray cloud.

What an awful piece of news it was for a woman whose whole thoughts were full of her young lover, who was looking forward hour by hour to a joy which no words can express, a woman who had been at a world of pains to invent plausible pretexts to draw him to her side. Yet, after all, it was a cruel deed of charity to be

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

honour.[6]

[1] Lit. "that human beings will abide all risks and undergo all pains to clutch the bait."

[2] Cf. "Cyrop." II. iii. 8; VIII. i. 29.

[3] Cf. "Mem." II. iii. 16; "Cyrop." VII. v. 20.

[4] {gerairosi}, poetic. Cf. "Cyrop." VIII. i. 39; "Hell." I. vii. 33; "Econ." iv. 8; "Herod." v. 67; Pind. "O." iii. 3, v. 11; "N." v. 15; "Od." xiv. 437, 441; "Il." vii. 321; Plat. "Rep." 468 D, quoting "Il." vii. 321.

[5] Reading {tois turannois}, or if {tous turannous}, after Cobet, "That is how they treat crowned heads."

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 One Basket by Edna Ferber:

every place from Dixie to Duluth. But now seems it's all these here flag wavers. Honestly, I'm so sick of 'em I got a notion to enlist to get away from it."

Terry eyed him with withering briefness. "A little training wouldn't ruin your figure."

She had never objected to Orville's embonpoint. But then, Orville was a different sort of fat man; pink-cheeked, springy, immaculate.

At four o'clock, as she was in the chorus of "Isn't There Another Joan of Arc?" a melting masculine voice from the other side of the counter said "Pardon me. What's that you're

One Basket