Today's Stichomancy for Dan Brown

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman:

Thursday," she gasped. Then she was gone, trundling the baby- carriage with incredible speed.

"But, Eudora --"

"I must go," she called back, faintly. The man stood staring after the hurrying figure with its swishing black skirts and its flying points of rich India shawl, and he smiled happily and tenderly. That evening at the inn his caller, a young fellow just married and beaming with happiness, saw an answering beam in the older man's face. He broke off in the midst of a sentence and stared at him.

"Don't give me away until I tell you to, Ned," he said, "but I

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde:

LORD GORING. May I ask are you staying in London long?

MRS. CHEVELEY. That depends partly on the weather, partly on the cooking, and partly on Sir Robert.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You are not going to plunge us into a European war, I hope?

MRS. CHEVELEY. There is no danger, at present!

[She nods to LORD GORING, with a look of amusement in her eyes, and goes out with SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. LORD GORING saunters over to MABEL CHILTERN.]

MABEL CHILTERN. You are very late!

LORD GORING. Have you missed me?

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry:

End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.

The Gift of the Magi

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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac:

"What does that matter? My father! Where is my father?"

His sobs resounded horribly against those dreary walls and reverberated in the echoes. The three women, filled with pity, wept also; for tears are often as contagious as laughter. Charles, without listening further to his uncle, ran through the court and up the staircase to his chamber, where he threw himself across the bed and hid his face in the sheets, to weep in peace for his lost parents.

"The first burst must have its way," said Grandet, entering the living-room, where Eugenie and her mother had hastily resumed their seats and were sewing with trembling hands, after wiping their eyes. "But that young man is good for nothing; his head is more taken up

Eugenie Grandet