Today's Stichomancy for Nick Lachey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

above her head on the pillow. She was thinking, and thinking, and she forgot that she was thinking her thinking aloud, and she said:

``Alice has a mama. Robbie has a mama. Katie has a mama. Where is Bessie Bell's mama? Never mind: Bessie Bell will find a mama.''

Then Sister Helen Vincula, who was wide awake, too, said:

``Ah me, ah me.''

Bessie Bell said: ``Sister Helen Vincula, did you call me?''

Sister Helen Vincula said:

``No, child: go to sleep.''

* * * * *

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

She read the letter with a strange sense of its coming from immeasurable distances and having lost most of its meaning on the way; and in reply she sent him a coloured postcard of Creston Falls, on which she wrote: "With love from Charity." She felt the pitiful inadequacy of this, and understood, with a sense of despair, that in her inability to express herself she must give him an impression of coldness and reluctance; but she could not help it. She could not forget that he had never spoken to her of marriage till Mr. Royall had forced the word from his lips; though she had not

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.:

was all that I could do to restrain my tears. I think that my tone struck his conscience, for he made a few feverish attempts at conversation after that. But they were so entirely abortive that he soon abandoned the effort, and we finished our walk to church as speechlessly as we had begun it.

The service was bright, and the sermon perhaps a little commonplace, but sensible as it seemed to me in matter, and adequate in style. The peaceful evening hymn which followed, the short solemn pause of silent prayer at the end, soothed and refreshed my spirit. A hasty glance at my companion's face as he stood waiting for me in the porch, with the full light from the

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 Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis:

business was to do the work I was hired to do according to specifications. Further than that, nothing."

"But why did you think I was having the work done?"

"Can't say I thought," said Mr. Watkins. "I took the job, and I done it. Had an idea mebby you were in the movin' picture game."

Mr. Watkins, as he talked, had been regarding Cap'n Abernethy, who in turn was looking at the mainmast. There seemed to be something in the very way Cap'n Abernethy looked at the mainmast which jarred on Mr. Watkins. Mr. Watkins dropped his voice, indicating the Cap'n with a curved, disparaging thumb, as he asked Cleggett: