Today's Stichomancy for Jay Leno

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini:

an honourable wifehood for... for the thing that such men as M. de La Tour d'Azyr may have in store for you?"

M. Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. "You hear him, the mealy-mouthed prude! Perhaps you'll believe at last that marriage with him would be the ruin of you. He would always be there the inconvenient husband - to mar your every chance, my girl."

She tossed her lovely head in agreement with her father "I begin to find him tiresome with his silly jealousies," she confessed. "As a husband I am afraid he would be impossible."

Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But - always the actor - he showed nothing of it. He laughed a little, not very

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells:

collective prayer very well, but there are people who appear to do so and there is no reason why they should not assemble for that purpose. And there is no doubt that divine poetry, divine maxims, religious thought finely expressed, may be heard, rehearsed, collected, published, and distributed by associations. The desire for expression implies a sort of assembly, a hearer at least as well as a speaker. And expression has many forms. People with a strong artistic impulse will necessarily want to express themselves by art when religion touches them, and many arts, architecture and the drama for example, are collective undertakings. I do not see why there should not be, under God, associations for building cathedrals

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister:

and suddenly it came to me. If he had tried familiarity with me the first two minutes of our acquaintance, I should have resented it; by what right, then, had I tried it with him? It smacked of patronizing: on this occasion he had come off the better gentleman of the two. Here in flesh and blood was a truth which I had long believed in words, but never met before. The creature we call a GENTLEMAN lies deep in the hearts of thousands that are born without chance to master the outward graces of the type.

Between the station and the eating-house I did a deal of straight thinking. But my thoughts were destined presently to be drowned in amazement at the rare personage into whose society fate had

The Virginian

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 Ursula by Honore de Balzac:

consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to the marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with whom?--with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment, without money, and whose father--alas! I must now tell you all--was the bastard son of an organist, my father-in-law."

"O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I will not think of him again--except in my prayers," she said, amid the sobs which this painful revelation excited. "Give him what you meant to give me--what can a poor girl like me want?--ah, in prison, he!--"

"Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us."

There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not