Today's Stichomancy for Liv Tyler

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

seventeen hours.

I suppose an honourable bankrupt would know such an awakening: the sense of catastrophe, the shrinking from the necessity of beginning life again, the faint feeling that there are misfortunes which must be paid for by a hanging. In the course of the morning Therese informed me that the apartment usually occupied by Mr. Blunt was vacant and added mysteriously that she intended to keep it vacant for a time, because she had been instructed to do so. I couldn't imagine why Blunt should wish to return to Marseilles. She told me also that the house was empty except for myself and the two dancing girls with their father. Those people had been away for some time

The Arrow of Gold

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

alive; alive like heat waves over asphalt, like wriggling worms.... "Come back! Come back!" Axia's arm fell on his. "Amory, dear, you aren't going, Amory!" He was half-way to the door. "Come on, Amory, stick 'th us!" "Sick, are you?" "Sit down a second!" "Take some water." "Take a little brandy...." The elevator was close, and the colored boy was half asleep, paled to a livid bronze ... Axia's beseeching voice floated down

This Side of Paradise

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:

have any good thing myself I teach it them, or I commend them to others by whom I think they will be helped forwards on the path of virtue. The treasures also of the wise of old, written and bequeathed in their books,[10] I unfold and peruse in common with my friends. If our eye light upon any good thing we cull it eagerly, and regard it as great gain if we may but grow in friendship with one another.

[7] Add "and a sign of modesty," {sophrona nomizomen}.

[8] {sophistas}. See Grote, "H. G." viii. 482 foll.; "Hunting," xi. foll.

[9] Cf. Plat. "Lys." 211 E.

[10] Cf. "Symp." iv. 27.

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 Lin McLean by Owen Wister:

Mr. McLean had discovered that truth somewhat abruptly.

Lin thoughtfully continued. "She is--she's--she's--what are you laughin' at?"

"Oh, nothing. You don't see quite so much of Miss Wood as you used to, do you?"

"Huh! So that's got around. Well, o' course I'd ought t've knowed better, I suppose. All the same, there's lots and lots of girls do like gettin' kissed against their wishes--and you know it."

"But the point would rather seem to be that she--"

"Would rather seem! Don't yu' start that professor style o' yours, or I'll--I'll talk more wickedness in worse language than ever yu've heard