Today's Stichomancy for Will Smith

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley:

which no one has taught them to arrange, and the reason with problems which they have no method for solving; till they fret themselves in a chronic fever of the brain, which too often urge them on to plunge, as it were, to cool the inward fire, into the ever-restless seas of doubt or of superstition. It is a sad picture. There are many who may read these pages whose hearts will tell them that it is a true one. What is wanted in these cases is a methodic and scientific habit of mind; and a class of objects on which to exercise that habit, which will fever neither the speculative intellect nor the moral sense; and those physical science will give, as nothing else can give it.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber:

have the early buyers taken to it?"

Buck crooked an elbow over his head in self-defense.

"Stop it! You make me feel like Rheims cathedral. Don't bombard until negotiations fail."

He handed her the first sheaf of papers. But, before she began to read: "I'll say this much. Miss Sharp, of Berg Brothers, Omaha--the one you warned against as the human cactus--had me up for dinner. Well, I know you don't, but it's true. Her father and I hit it off just like that. He's a character, that old boy. Ever meet him? No? And Miss Sharp told me something about herself that explains her porcupine pose. That poor child was

Emma McChesney & Co.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain:

to try to turn it to some valuable account. The thought came to me the next morning, and was sug- gested by my seeing one of my knights who was in the soap line come riding in. According to history, the monks of this place two centuries before had been worldly minded enough to want to wash. It might be that there was a leaven of this unrighteousness still re- maining. So I sounded a Brother:

"Wouldn't you like a bath?"

He shuddered at the thought -- the thought of the peril of it to the well -- but he said with feeling:

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

"Is the head of the firm here?" asked Mrs. Klingmayer, wiping her forehead with her handkerchief. The clerk nodded and hurried away to tell his employer about the woman with the white face who came to ask for a man who, as she expressed it, "would never come there again."

"I don't think she's quite right in the head," he volunteered. The head of the firm told him to bring the woman into the inner office.

"Who are you, my good woman?" he asked kindly, softened by the evident agitation of this poorly though neatly dressed woman.

"I am Mr. Winkler's landlady," she answered.

"Ah! and he wants you to tell me that he's sick? I'm afraid I can't