Today's Stichomancy for Matt Damon

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

cloud.

"Hello there!" he called down the staircase. "How's the air?"

"Clothes! Send us some clothes!"

It was Mr. Sam calling. The rest was swallowed up in a fresh roaring, as if a steam-pipe had given away. That settled the people below. With a burst of fury they swarmed up the stairs in their bath sheets, the bishop leading, and just behind him, talking as no gentleman should talk under any circumstances, Senator Biggs. The rest followed, their red faces shining through the steam--all of them murderous, holding their sheets around them with one hand, and waving the other in a frenzy. It

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

evening....

About eight the Bingen was rushed by an armed mob, and all its defenders killed after a fierce, disorderly struggle.

The difficulty of the Germans in both these cases came from the impossibility of landing any efficient force or, indeed, any force at all from the air-fleet. The airships were quite unequal to the transport of any adequate landing parties; their complement of men was just sufficient to manoeuvre and fight them in the air. From above they could inflict immense damage; they could reduce any organised Government to a capitulation in the briefest space, but they could not disarm, much less could they

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

schedule if he cannot arrange a settlement. This very morning Delphine petitioned for the separation of her estate. You may still save your fortune.'

" 'How?' faltered Godefroid; the blood turned to ice in his veins.

" 'Simply write to the Baron de Nucingen, antedating your letter a fortnight, and instruct him to invest all your capital in shares.'-- Rastignac suggested Claparon and Company, and continued--'You have a fortnight, a month, possibly three months, in which to realize and make something; the shares are still going up----'

" 'But d'Aiglemont, who was here at breakfast with us, has a million in Nucingen's bank.'

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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis:

in six months; but he believed in the man, thoroughly.

"I've just helped Knowles build a Christmas-tree in yonder,--the House of Refuge: you know. He could not tell an oak from an arbor-vitae, I believe."

Knowles was in no mood for quizzing.

"There are other things I don't know," he said, gloomily, recurring to some subject Holmes had interrupted. "The House is going to the Devil, Charley, headlong."

"There's no use in saying no," said the other; "you'll call me a lying diviner."

Knowles did not listen.

Margret Howth: A Story of To-day