Today's Stichomancy for Lucille Ball

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey:

neck; his breast heaved convulsively.

"You fool!" cried Hare, dumfounded and resentful. "I recognized you. Would you rather hang than live? What's your secret?"

He snatched off the black mask. The Bishop's eldest son stood revealed.

"Good God!" cried Hare, recoiling from that convulsed face.

"Brother! Oh! I feared this," groaned John Caldwell.

The rustlers broke out into curses and harsh laughter.

"You Mormons! See him! Paul Caldwell! Son of a Bishop! Thought he was shepherdin' sheep?"

"D--n you, Hare!" shouted the guilty Mormon, in passionate fury and shame. "Why didn't you hang me? Why didn't you bury me unknown?"

The Heritage of the Desert

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber:

The three bowed, but did not commit themselves. Emma, her hand still on Sophy's, elaborated:

"Sophy Kumpf has been with the T. A. Buck Company for thirty years. She could run this business single-handed, if she had to. She knows any machine in the shop, can cut a pattern, keep books, run the entire plant if necessary. If there's anything about petticoats that Sophy doesn't know, it's because it hasn't been invented yet. Sophy was sixteen when she came to Buck's. I've heard she was the prettiest and best dressed girl in the shop."

"Oh, now, Mrs. Buck!" remonstrated Sophy.

Emma tried to frown as she surveyed Sophy's bright eyes, her rosy

Emma McChesney & Co.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac:

building a house for him, and the young man had taken great pains with the rooms when he knew that Florine was to occupy them.

Matifat, a tradesman to the backbone, went about carefully, afraid to touch the new furniture; he seemed to have the totals of the bills always before his eyes, and to look upon the splendors about him as so much jewelry imprudently withdrawn from the case.

"And I shall be obliged to do as much for Florentine!" old Cardot's eyes seemed to say.

Lucien at once began to understand Lousteau's indifference to the state of his garret. Etienne was the real king of these festivals; Etienne enjoyed the use of all these fine things. He was standing just

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 Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift:

Montaigne, and another by the late Bishop of Salisbury. From all which it appears, that this system of male and female has already undergone and may hereafter suffer, several alterations. Every smatterer in anatomy knows, that a woman is but an introverted man; a new fusion and flatus will turn the hollow bottom of a bottle into a convexity; but I forbear, (for the sake of my modest men-readers, who are in a few days to be virgins.)

In some subjects, the smallest alterations will do: some men are sufficiently spread about the hips, and contriv'd with female softness, that they want only the negative quantity to make them buxom wenches; and there are women who are, as it were, already