Today's Stichomancy for Jack Nicholson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.:

to heed her. I continued my search in the soft and yielding soil that time and the decay of vegetable life had accumulated over the pre-Adamite strata on which the arch of the cave rested its mighty keystone.

When we had collected of these particles about thrice as much as a man might hold in his hand, we seemed to have exhausted their bed. We continued still to find gold, but no more of the delicate substance to which, in our sight, gold was as dross.

"Enough," then said Margrave, reluctantly desisting. "What we have gained already will suffice for a life thrice as long as legend attributes to Haroun. I shall live--I shall live through the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

"I've found it!" cried the Shaggy Man, and ran to Dorothy with a queer-shaped piece that had a mouth on it. But when they tried to fit it to the eye and nose they found the parts wouldn't match together.

"That mouth belongs to some other person," said Dorothy. "You see we need a curve here and a point there, to make it fit the face."

"Well, it must be here some place," declared the Wizard; "so if we search long enough we shall find it."

Dorothy fitted an ear on next, and the ear had a little patch of red hair above it. So while the others were searching for the mouth she hunted for pieces with red hair, and found several of them which, when matched to the other pieces, formed the top of a man's head. She had

The Emerald City of Oz

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac:

own rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor her pretty toys; she is buried in trade; she buys socks for her dear little children, nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no longer sends to school at a convent. Thus your noblest dames have been turned into worthy brood-hens."

"Alas! it is true," said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot show those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman has nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a

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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith:

cautiously above the low fence and shrank back into the shadow.

Tom threw open the door and felt along the sill for the lantern and matches. They were not in their accustomed place. The man crouched, ran noiselessly toward the rear entrance, and crept in behind a stall. Tom laid her hand on the haunches of the horse and began rolling back his blanket. The man drew himself up slowly until his shoulders were on a level with the planking. Tom moved a step and turned her face. The man raised his arm, whirled a hammer high in the air, and brought it down upon her head.

When Cully led the Big Gray into his stall, a moment later, he stepped into a pool of blood.