Today's Stichomancy for Sean Astin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen:

to urge--that because she was injured she was irreproachable, and because I was a libertine, SHE must be a saint. If the violence of her passions, the weakness of her understanding--I do not mean, however, to defend myself. Her affection for me deserved better treatment, and I often, with great self-reproach, recall the tenderness which, for a very short time, had the power of creating any return. I wish--I heartily wish it had never been. But I have injured more than herself; and I have injured one, whose affection for me--(may I say it?) was scarcely less warm than hers; and whose mind--Oh! how infinitely superior!"--

Sense and Sensibility

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle:

Eightscore yards distant from the mark from which the archers were to shoot stood ten fair targets, each target marked by a flag of the color belonging to the band that was to shoot thereat. So all was ready for the coming of the King and Queen.

At last a great blast of bugles sounded, and into the meadow came riding six trumpeters with silver trumpets, from which hung velvet banners heavy with rich workings of silver and gold thread. Behind these came stout King Henry upon a dapple-gray stallion, with his Queen beside him upon a milk-white palfrey. On either side of them walked the yeomen of the guard, the bright sunlight flashing from the polished blades of the steel halberds

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther:

that you deprive your neighbor of anything that belongs to him so that he suffer the loss and you gratify your avarice with it, even if you could keep it honorably before the world; for it is a secret and insidious imposition practiced under the hat, as we say, that it may not be observed. For although you go your way as if you had done no one any wrong, you have nevertheless injured your neighbor; and if it is not called stealing and cheating, yet it is called coveting your neighbor's property, that is, aiming at possession of it, enticing it away from him without his will, and being unwilling to see him enjoy what God has granted him. And although the judge and every one must leave you in possession of it, yet God will not leave you therein; for

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 U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer:

the south. Although most of the shelter occupants were civilians, at least 23 military participants were spread among the three shelters (1; 12).

The remainder of the test site personnel were positioned at the Base Camp 16 kilometers south-southwest of ground zero, or on Compania Hill, or at the guard posts. Important Government officials, such as General Groves and Dr. Vannevar Bush, Director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, viewed the detonation from a trench at the Base Camp. The Base Camp is depicted in figure 2-5.

The military police of Guard Posts 1 and 2 were instructed to be in foxholes approximately five kilometers west and north, respectively,