Today's Stichomancy for Liv Tyler

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac:

resistance is based on powerful reasons which are not personal to myself. It is a crime to give birth to poor creatures condemned to endless suffering. Yet my position raises serious questions, so serious that I dare not decide them alone; I cannot be judge and party both. To-morrow I will go to Tours and consult my new confessor, the Abbe Birotteau--for my dear and virtuous Abbe de la Berge is dead," she said, interrupting herself. "Though he was severe, I miss and shall always miss his apostolic power. His successor is an angel of goodness, who pities but does not reprimand. Still, all courage draws fresh life from the heart of religion; what soul is not strengthened by the voice of the Holy Spirit? My God," she said, drying her tears

The Lily of the Valley

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

set his "statements" afloat, like paper boats which the mysterious current might sweep out into the open seas of life.

One day, however, his attention was arrested by a familiar contour, a pair of bright prominent eyes, and a chin insufficiently shaved. He sprang up and stood in the path of Peter McCarren.

The journalist looked at him doubtfully, then held out his hand with a startled deprecating, "WHY--?"

"You didn't know me? I'm so changed?" Granice faltered, feeling the rebound of the other's wonder.

"Why, no; but you're looking quieter--smoothed out," McCarren

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

umbrella. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's a plan - a secret."

"A secret!" There was an instant's silence, and then Mr. Morrow made another movement. I may have been mistaken, but it affected me as the translated impulse of the desire to lay hands on the manuscript, and this led me to indulge in a quick anticipatory grab which may very well have seemed ungraceful, or even impertinent, and which at any rate left Mr. Paraday's two admirers very erect, glaring at each other while one of them held a bundle of papers well behind him. An instant later Mr. Morrow quitted me abruptly, as if he had really carried something off with him. To reassure

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 Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac:

men; don't fail him. It is well for you to enter young into the affairs of the nation and learn your way; for statesmen, like actors, have a routine business to acquire, which genius does not reveal, it must be learnt. My father heard the Duc de Choiseul say this. Think of me," she said, after a pause; "let me enjoy the pleasures of superiority in a soul that is all my own; for are you not my son?"

"Your son?" I said, sullenly.

"Yes, my son!" she cried, mocking me; "is not that a good place in my heart?"

The bell rang for dinner; she took my arm and leaned contentedly upon it.

The Lily of the Valley