Today's Stichomancy for Ron Howard

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley:

it for them."

"But where shall we get water enough for all these millions of people? There are no mountains near London. But we might give them the water off our moors."

"No, no, my boy,

"He that will not when he may, When he will, he shall have nay.

Some fifteen years ago the Londoners might have had water from us; and I was one of those who did my best to get it for them: but the water companies did not choose to take it; and now this part of England is growing so populous and so valuable that it wants

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton:

be scorched in the fire, or half-burnt, before they be driven into the earth; for being thus used, it preserves them much longer from rotting. And having done so, lay faggots or bavins of smaller wood betwixt them: and then, earth betwixt and above them: and then, having first very well rammed them and the earth, use another pile in like manner as the first were: and note, that the second pile is to be of or about the height that you intend to make your sluice or floodgate, or the vent that you intend shall convey the overflowings of your pond in any flood that shall endanger the breaking of your pond-dam.

Then he advises, that you plant willows or owlers, about it, or both: and then cast in bavins, in some places not far from the side, and in the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac:

anything, and was careful to clean them out thoroughly, the dear man. But here are the facts. One evening the good man came home to supper with a melancholy face, because he had just put into the ground a good farmer, whose death came about in a strange manner, and is still frequently talked about in Azay. Seeing that he only ate with the end of his teeth, and turned up his nose at a dish of tripe, which had been cooked in his own special manner, his good woman said to him--

"Have you passed before the Lombard (see MASTER CORNELIUS passim), met two black crows, or seen the dead man turn in his grave, that you are so upset?"

"Oh! Oh!"

Droll Stories, V. 1

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 Heart of the West by O. Henry:

number whom he modestly forbore to count. Therefore a woman loved him.

The Kid was twenty-five, looked twenty; and a careful insurance company would have estimated the probable time of his demise at, say, twenty-six. His habitat was anywhere between the Frio and the Rio Grande. He killed for the love of it--because he was quick-tempered-- to avoid arrest--for his own amusement--any reason that came to his mind would suffice. He had escaped capture because he could shoot five-sixths of a second sooner than any sheriff or ranger in the service, and because he rode a speckled roan horse that knew every cow-path in the mesquite and pear thickets from San Antonio to Matamoras.

Heart of the West