Today's Stichomancy for Ashton Kutcher

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac:

but since the memory of the Odyssey has been thus evoked, I shall ask the Chamber to kindly remember that Ulysses, though disguised as a beggar and loaded with insults, was yet able to string his bow and easily get the better of his enemies. [Violet murmurs from the Centre.] I vote for leave of absence for fifteen days, and that the Chamber be again consulted at the expiration of that time.

/M. le Colonel Franchessini/.--I do not know if the last speaker intended to intimidate the Chamber, but, for my part, such arguments have very little power upon me, and I am always ready to send them back whence they came. [Left: "Come! come!"]

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

explain to you that we have just pasted up the paper ourselves, and that's the--reason why--the walls--are not--dry."

"Economy? quite right," said the judge.

"Look here," said Gaudissart in Finot's ear, "my friend Popinot is a virtuous young man; he is going with his uncle; let's you and I go and finish the evening with our cousins."

The journalist showed the empty lining of his pockets. Popinot saw the gesture, and slipped his twenty-franc piece into the palm of the author of the prospectus.

The judge had a coach at the end of the street, in which he carried off his nephew to the Birotteaus.

Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken:

Something was lost in the darkness. Someone is dead. Someone lies in the garden and grieves. Look how the branches are tossed in this air, Flinging their green to the earth! Black clouds rush to devour the stars in the sky, The moon stares down like a half-closed eye. The leaves are scattered, the birds are blown, Oaks crash down in the darkness, We run from our windy shadows; we are running alone.

* * * * *

The moon was darkened: across it flew

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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of counsel - who but thou? So now, in the end, if this the least be good, If any deed be done, if any fire Burn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine.

INTRODUCTORY

IN the wild end of a moorland parish, far out of the sight of any house, there stands a cairn among the heather, and a little by east of it, in the going down of the brae-side, a monument with some verses half defaced. It was here that Claverhouse shot with his own hand the Praying Weaver of Balweary, and the chisel of Old Mortality has clinked