Today's Stichomancy for Michael Moore

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain:

on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly.

I was powerful lazy and comfortable -- didn't want to get up and cook breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways up -- about abreast the ferry. And there was the ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the matter now. "Boom!" I see

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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

Heaven, I did not take the third of them. Gold ingots lay underneath the table. I persuaded my companion to fill as many bags as we could carry with the gold, and made him understand that this was our only chance of escaping detection abroad.

" 'Pearls, rubies, and diamonds might be recognized,' I told him.

"Covetous though we were, we could not possibly take more than two thousand livres weight of gold, which meant six journeys across the prison to the gondola. The sentinel at the water gate was bribed with a bag containing ten livres weight of gold; and as far as the two gondoliers, they believed they were serving the Republic. At daybreak we set out.

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

HERODE. Tout, fut-ce la moitie de mon royaume.

SALOME. Vous le jurez, tetrarque?

HERODE. Je le jure, Salome.

HERODIAS. Ma fille, ne dansez pas.

SALOME. Sur quoi jurez-vous, tetrarque?

HERODE. Sur ma vie, sur ma couronne, sur mes dieux. Tout ce que vous voudrez je vous le donnerai, fut-ce la moitie de mon royaume, si vous dansez pour moi. Oh! Salome, Salome, dansez pour moi.

SALOME. Vous avez jure, tetrarque.

HERODE. J'ai jure, Salome.

SALOME. Tout ce que je vous demanderai, fut-ce la moitie de votre

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 Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain:

lent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story -- that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.

Although my book is intended mainly for the en- tertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.

THE AUTHOR.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer