Today's Stichomancy for Robert De Niro

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland:

THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--AS A REFORMER

In June, 1902, soon after the return of the court from Hsian to Peking, a company of ladies from the various legations in Peking who had received invitations to an audience and a banquet with the Empress Dowager were asked to meet at one of the legations for the purpose of consultation. The meeting was unusual. Many of those who were present had no higher motive than the ordinary tourist who goes sightseeing. With the exception of one or two who had been in once before, none of these ladies had ever been present at an audience. Several of them however had passed

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato:

knowledge about which you have been doubting, or shall I prove that you already have it?

What, I said, are you blessed with such a power as this?

Indeed I am.

Then I would much rather that you should prove me to have such a knowledge; at my time of life that will be more agreeable than having to learn.

Then tell me, he said, do you know anything?

Yes, I said, I know many things, but not anything of much importance.

That will do, he said: And would you admit that anything is what it is, and at the same time is not what it is?

Certainly not.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne:

but they were still there, and three or four times a nose or a paw was poked out at the door or windows, and was immediately saluted by a gun- shot.

"Let us hide ourselves," at last said the engineer. "Perhaps the apes will think we have gone quite away and will show themselves again. Let Spilett and Herbert conceal themselves behind those rocks and fire on all that may appear."

The engineer's orders were obeyed, and while the reporter and the lad, the best marksmen in the colony, posted themselves in a good position, but out of the monkeys' sight, Neb, Pencroft, and Cyrus climbed the plateau and entered the forest in order to kill some game, for it was now time for

The Mysterious Island

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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton:

overtaken by a storm. While he listened to her account of the concert he began to think that, after all, she had not yet sorted the papers, and that her agitation of the previous day must be ascribed to another cause, in which perhaps he had but an indirect concern. He wondered it had never before occurred to him that Flamel was the kind of man who might very well please a woman at his own expense, without need of fortuitous assistance. If this possibility cleared the outlook it did not brighten it. Glennard merely felt himself left alone with his baseness.

Alexa left the breakfast-table before him and when he went up to the drawing-room he found her dressed to go out.