Today's Stichomancy for Billy Joel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield:

shot at pirates with the tongs. Every evening they each had a pick-a-back up the narrow stairs to their fat old Nanny.

Yes, he supposed it was a poky little house. A little white house with blue curtains and a window-box of petunias. William met their friends at the door with "Seen our petunias? Pretty terrific for London, don't you think?"

But the imbecile thing, the absolutely extraordinary thing was that he hadn't the slightest idea that Isabel wasn't as happy as he. God, what blindness! He hadn't the remotest notion in those days that she really hated that inconvenient little house, that she thought the fat Nanny was ruining the babies, that she was desperately lonely, pining for new people

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

which he had now become the subject.

Cornelius travelled much in foreign lands after the death of his persecutor, the Duke of Burgundy; and during his absence the king caused his premises to be guarded by a detachment of his own Scottish guard. Such royal solicitude made the courtiers believe that the old miser had bequeathed his property to Louis XI. When at home, the torconnier went out but little; but the lords of the court paid him frequent visits. He lent them money rather liberally, though capricious in his manner of doing so. On certain days he refused to give them a penny; the next day he would offer them large sums,--always at high interest and on good security. A good Catholic,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber:

with full stops for the ribbons on her robe de nuit, and the buckles on her ballroom slippers. Half the poor creatures one sees flattening their noses against the shop windows are authors getting a line on the advance fashions. Suppose a careless writer were to dress his heroine in a full-plaited skirt only to find, when his story is published four months later, that full-plaited skirts have been relegated to the dim past!

I started to read a story once. It was a good one. There was in it not a single allusion to brandy-and-soda, or divorce, or the stock market. The dialogue crackled. The hero talked like a live man. It was a shipboard story, and the heroine was charming so

Buttered Side Down

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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

"Where was what?" I asked. The feeling was stronger than ever with his voice.

"I beg your pardon," he said, and let my hand drop. "Just for a second I had an idea that we had met before somewhere, a long time ago. I suppose--no, it couldn't have happened, or I should remember." He was smiling, half at himself.

"No," I smiled back at him. "It didn't happen, I'm afraid--unless we dreamed it."

"We?"

"I felt that way, too, for a moment."

"The Brushwood Boy!" he said with conviction. "Perhaps we will