Today's Stichomancy for Kirk Douglas

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad:

anybody. It was as if these had been the faces of people from the other world--dead people--he used to tell me years afterwards. Upon my word, I wonder he did not go mad. He didn't know where he was. Somewhere very far from his moun- tains--somewhere over the water. Was this Amer- ica, he wondered?

"If it hadn't been for the steel cross at Miss Swaffer's belt he would not, he confessed, have known whether he was in a Christian country at all. He used to cast stealthy glances at it, and feel

Amy Foster

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

clothespress, which the combined wardrobes of two did not fill. And beyond that again, opening through an arch with a dingy chenille curtain, the sitting-room, now in chaotic disorder.

Byrne went directly to the sitting-room. There were four men already there: Stewart and Boyer, a pathology man named Wallace Hunter, doing research work at the general hospital, and a young piano student from Tennessee named MacLean. The cards had been already dealt, and Byrne stood by waiting for the hand to be played.

The game was a small one, as befitted the means of the majority. It was a regular Saturday night affair, as much a custom as the

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

officers, one boy, and the steward, a mulatto who an- swered to the name of Abraham. Mrs. Beard was an old woman, with a race all wrinkled and ruddy like a winter apple, and the figure of a young girl. She caught sight of me once, sewing on a button, and insisted on having my shirts to repair. This was something different from the captains' wives I had known on board crack clippers. When I brought her the shirts, she said: 'And the socks? They want mending, I am sure, and John's-- Captain Beard's--things are all in order now. I would be glad of something to do.' Bless the old woman. She

Youth

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 Underground City by Jules Verne:

"Here I am, Harry." And they both advanced, whilst Harry looked on every side, throwing the light of his lamp into all the corners of the gallery.

"Shall we soon be there?" asked the engineer.

"In ten minutes at most."

"Good."

"But," muttered Harry, "that was a most singular thing. It is the first time such an accident has happened to me.

That stone falling just at the moment we were passing."

"Harry, it was a mere chance."

"Chance," replied the young man, shaking his head. "Yes, chance."