Today's Stichomancy for Jet Li

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum:

gazed upon the fierce battle that still raged far away upon the African VELD. Before long his keen eye recognized the troops engaged and realized their imminent danger.

"They'll be utterly annihilated!" he gasped. "What shall we do?"

"Oh, we can't do anything just now," answered Rob. "But it's curious to watch how bravely the poor fellows fight for their lives."

The minister, who by this time was also peering into the box, groaned aloud, and then all three forgot their surroundings in the tragedy they were beholding.

Hemmed in by vastly superior numbers, the English were calmly and stubbornly resisting every inch of advance and selling their lives as

The Master Key

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

reason for't--

SURFACE. Undoubtedly--for your Husband [should] never be deceived in you--and in that case it becomes you to be frail in compliment to his discernment--

LADY TEAZLE. To be sure what you say is very reasonable--and when the consciousness of my own Innocence----

SURFACE. Ah: my dear--Madam there is the great mistake--'tis this very conscious Innocence that is of the greatest Prejudice to you-- what is it makes you negligent of Forms and careless of the world's opinion--why the consciousness of your Innocence--what makes you thoughtless in your Conduct and apt to run into a thousand little

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

for wrestling is often ugly for running; and in general everything is good and beautiful when well adapted for the end in view, bad and ugly when ill adapted for the same.

Similarly when he spoke about houses,[12] and argued that "the same house must be at once beautiful and useful"--I could not help feeling that he was giving a good lesson on the problem: "how a house ought to be built." He investigated the matter thus:

[12] See K. Joel, op. cit. p. 488; "Classical Review," vii. 262.

Soc. "Do you admit that any one purposing to build a perfect house[13] will plan to make it at once as pleasant and as useful to live in as possible?" and that point being admitted,[14] the next question would

The Memorabilia

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 The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad:

sir, and have something to eat to-day."

I went into the cuddy. My captain sat at the head of the table like a statue. There was a strange motionlessness of everything in that pretty little cabin. The swing-table which for seventy odd days had been always on the move, if ever so little, hung quite still above the soup-tureen. Nothing could have altered the rich colour of my commander's complexion, laid on generously by wind and sea; but between the two tufts of fair hair above his ears, his skull, generally suffused with the hue of blood, shone dead white, like a dome of ivory. And he looked strangely untidy. I perceived he had not shaved himself that day; and yet the wildest motion of

The Mirror of the Sea