Today's Stichomancy for Jet Li

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll:

Bruno looked at me inquisitively, but he said nothing this time.

"Then after that," I went on, "the walks want sweeping a bit; and I think you might cut down that tall nettle--it's so close to the garden that it's quite in the way--"

"What is oo talking about?" Bruno impatiently interrupted me. "All that won't vex her a bit!"

"Won't it?" I said, innocently. "Then, after that, suppose we put in some of these coloured pebbles--just to mark the divisions between the different kinds of flowers, you know. That'll have a very pretty effect."

Bruno turned round and had another good stare at me. At last there

Sylvie and Bruno

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac:

to my family, but my heart is my own. If I love any one, my father and my mother will know it. Does that satisfy you, monsieur?"

"Thank you, mademoiselle; you restore me to life," said Dumay, "but you might still call me Dumay, even when you box my ears!"

"Swear to me," said her mother, "that you have not engaged a word or a look with any young man."

"I can swear that, my dear mother," said Modeste, laughing, and looking at Dumay who was watching her and smiling to himself like a mischievous girl.

"She must be false indeed if you are right," cried Dumay, when Modeste had left them and gone into the house.

Modeste Mignon

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton:

place, how you are to prepare your tackling: concerning which, I will, for sport sake, give you an old rhyme out of an old fish book; which will prove a part, and but a part, of what you are to provide.

My rod and my line, my float and my lead, My hook and my plummet, my whetstone and knife, My basket, my baits, both living and dead, My net, and my meat, for that is the chief: Then I must have thread, and hairs green and small, With mine angling purse: and so you have all.

But you must have all these tackling, and twice so many more, with which, if you mean to be a fisher, you must store yourself; and to that

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 Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Where a faint light shines alone, Dwells a Demon I have known. Most of you had better say "The Dark House", and go your way. Do not wonder if I stay.

For I know the Demon's eyes, And their lure that never dies. Banish all your fond alarms, For I know the foiling charms Of her eyes and of her arms,

And I know that in one room