Today's Stichomancy for J.K. Rowling

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare:

And take a Bond of Fate: thou shalt not liue, That I may tell pale-hearted Feare, it lies; And sleepe in spight of Thunder.

Thunder 3 Apparation, a Childe Crowned, with a Tree in his hand.

What is this, that rises like the issue of a King, And weares vpon his Baby-brow, the round And top of Soueraignty? All. Listen, but speake not too't

3 Appar. Be Lyon metled, proud, and take no care: Who chafes, who frets, or where Conspirers are: Macbeth shall neuer vanquish'd be, vntill

Macbeth

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells:

with politics, but it is not a novelty in Italy. All over Venetia there are agricultural banks which are said to be "clerical." I grappled with this mystery. "How are they clerical?" I asked Captain Pirelli. "Do they lend money on bad security to clerical voters, and on no terms whatever to anti- clericals?" He was quite of my way of thinking. "/Pecunia non olet/," he said; "I have never yet smelt a clerical fifty lira note."... But on the other hand Italy is very close to Germany; she wants easy money for development, cheap coal, a market for various products. The case against the Germans--this case in which the Banca Commerciale Italiana appears, I am convinced

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac:

not to Popinot who loves us, nor to your uncle Pillerault. I shall first write to my brother; he is canon and vicar of the cathedral. He spends nothing, and I have no doubt he has means. If he saves only three thousand francs a year, that would give him at the end of twenty years one hundred thousand francs. In the provinces the priests lay up money."

Cesarine hastened to bring her father a little table with writing- things upon it,--among them the surplus of invitations printed on pink paper.

"Burn all that!" cried her father. "The devil alone could have prompted me to give that ball. If I fail, I shall seem to have been a

Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau

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 Blix by Frank Norris:

"Original?--why, it's new as paint! It's--it's--Travis, I'll make a story out of this that will be copied in every paper between the two oceans." They were so interested in the mate's story that they forgot to take a car, and walked up Clay Street talking it over, suggesting, rearranging, and embellishing; and Condy was astonished and delighted to note that she "caught on" to the idea as quickly as he, and knew the telling points and what details to leave out.