Today's Stichomancy for Barbara Streisand

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar:

concessa laeti, ut explorata victoria, sarmentis virgultisque collectis, quibus fossas Romanorum compleant, ad castra pergunt.

Locus erat castrorum editus et paulatim ab imo acclivis circiter passus mille. Huc magno cursu contenderunt, ut quam minimum spatii ad se colligendos armandosque Romanis daretur, exanimatique pervenerunt.

Sabinus suos hortatus cupientibus signum dat. Impeditis hostibus propter ea quae ferebant onera subito duabus portis eruptionem fieri iubet.

Factum est oportunitate loci, hostium inscientia ac defatigatione, virtute militum et superiorum pugnarum exercitatione, ut ne unum quidem nostrorum impetum ferrent ac statim terga verterent. Quos impeditos integris viribus milites nostri consecuti magnum numerum eorum occiderunt; reliquos

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain:

the village told Goodson where they got it; that he thus saved Goodson from marrying the tainted girl; that he had done him this great service "without knowing the full value of it," in fact without knowing that he WAS doing it; but that Goodson knew the value of it, and what a narrow escape he had had, and so went to his grave grateful to his benefactor and wishing he had a fortune to leave him. It was all clear and simple, now, and the more he went over it the more luminous and certain it grew; and at last, when he nestled to sleep, satisfied and happy, he remembered the whole thing just as if it had been yesterday. In fact, he dimly remembered Goodson's TELLING him his gratitude once. Meantime Mary had spent

The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg

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

To run down for it I didn't dare. There was no time. All at once my strained, yearning stare distinguished a white object floating within a yard of the ship's side. White on the black water. A phosphorescent flash passed under it. What was that thing? . . . I recognized my own floppy hat. It must have fallen off his head . . . and he didn't bother. Now I had what I wanted--the saving mark for my eyes. But I hardly thought of my other self, now gone from the ship, to be hidden forever from all friendly faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, with no brand of the curse on his sane forehead to stay a slaying hand . . . too proud to explain.

The Secret Sharer

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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

SCENE IV. Other plains in Gascony.

[Enter Somerset, with his army; a Captain of Talbot's with him.]

SOMERSET. It is too late; I cannot send them now: This expedition was by York and Talbot Too rashly plotted: all our general force Might with a sally of the very town Be buckled with: the over-daring Talbot Hath sullied all his gloss of former honor By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure: