Today's Stichomancy for Kate Beckinsale

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister:

snobile."

"Ah!" cried the delighted lady, "they'd never have the wit!"

"Did you ever hear," I continued, "the Bostonian's remark--'The mission of America is to vulgarize the world'?"

"I never expected to agree so totally with a Bostonian!" declared Mrs. Gregory.

"Nothing so hopeful," I pursued, "has ever been said of us. For refinement and thoroughness and tradition delay progress, and we are sweeping them out of the road as fast as we can."

"Come away, Julia," said Mrs. Gregory. "The young gentleman is getting flippant again, and we leave him."

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

she were young and remarkably pretty I received so significant a "No sir!" that I risked an advance and after a minute in this manner found myself, to my astonishment, face to face with Mrs. Meldrum.

"Oh you dear thing," she exclaimed, "I'm delighted to see you: you spare me another compromising demarche! But for this I should have called on you also. Know the worst at once: if you see me here it's at least deliberate--it's planned, plotted, shameless. I came up on purpose to see him, upon my word I'm in love with him. Why, if you valued my peace of mind, did you let him the other day at Folkestone dawn upon my delighted eyes? I found myself there in

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen:

acquaintance with you, the intimacy which followed it and the particular affectionate attention you paid me almost from the first, caused me to entertain the flattering Idea of those attentions being improved on a closer acquaintance into a Freindship which, if you were what my wishes formed you would be the greatest Happiness I could be capable of enjoying. To find that such Hopes are realised is a satisfaction indeed, a satisfaction which is now almost the only one I can ever experience.--I feel myself so languid that I am sure were you with me you would oblige me to leave off writing, and I cannot give you a greater proof of my affection for you than by acting,

Love and Friendship

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 Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

If the holiest bonds by him rashly are torn,

Then come to your father--to me! The beggar may gladden life's pathway forlorn,

Though aged and weak he may be. This castle is mine! thou hast made it thy prey,

Thy people 'twas put me to flight; The tokens I bear will confirm what I say"--

The children they hear with delight.

"The king who erst govern'd returneth again, And restores to the Faithful the goods that were ta'en,

I'll unseal all my treasures the while;