Today's Stichomancy for Kelly Hu

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton:

he "went over the farm" with Reggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables, to long and impressive disquisitions on the horse; after tea he talked in a corner of the firelit hall with a young lady who had professed herself broken-hearted when his engagement was announced, but was now eager to tell him of her own matrimonial hopes; and finally, about midnight, he assisted in putting a gold-fish in one visitor's bed, dressed up a burglar in the bath-room of a nervous aunt, and saw in the small hours by joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to the

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

the term mad ought only to be used in speaking of those whose brain is for some unknown cause diseased, and who can show no reason in their actions. Everything in my husband is perfectly balanced. Though he did not actively recognize you, it is not that he did not see you. He has succeeded in detaching himself from his body, and discerns us under some other aspect--what that is, I know not. When he speaks, he utters wondrous things. Only it often happens that he concludes in speech an idea that had its beginning in his mind; or he may begin a sentence and finish it in thought. To other men he seems insane; to me, living as I do in his mind, his ideas are quite lucid. I follow the road his spirit travels; and though I do not know every turning, I can reach

Louis Lambert

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare:

DUKE. Then go thou forth; And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm, As thy auspicious mistress!

BERTRAM. This very day, Great Mars, I put myself into thy file; Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove A lover of thy drum, hater of love.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 4. Rousillon. A room in the COUNTESS'S palace.

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 Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

She paws the 'ole night through, An' she won't take 'er feed 'cause o' waitin' for 'is step, Which is just what a beast would do. 'Is girl she goes with a bombardier Before 'er month is through; An' the banns are up in church, for she's got the beggar hooked, Which is just what a girl would do. We fought 'bout a dog -- last week it were -- No more than a round or two;

Verses 1889-1896