Today's Stichomancy for Lucy Liu

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson:

treasurers, wardens of the armoury, the napery, and the stores. Each knew and did her part to admiration. Should anything be required - a particular gun, perhaps, or a particular bolt of stuff, - the right queen was summoned; she came bringing the right chest, opened it in the king's presence, and displayed her charge in perfect preservation - the gun cleaned and oiled, the goods duly folded. Without delay or haste, and with the minimum of speech, the whole great establishment turned on wheels like a machine. Nowhere have I seen order more complete and pervasive. And yet I was always reminded of Norse tales of trolls and ogres who kept their hearts buried in the ground for the mere safety, and must

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx:

division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of the machinery, etc.

Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by

The Communist Manifesto

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

"A fighting chance--the doctor says."

The face of the older man changed subtly. Not a line was altered, but it seemed to have a different substance, as if it were carved out of some firm, imperishable stuff.

"A fighting chance," he said, "may do for a speculation, but it is not a good investment. You owe something to young Rollins. Your grateful feeling does you credit. But don't overwork it. Send him three or four hundred, if you like. You'll never hear from it again, except in the letter of thanks. But for

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 Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll:

Which the Beaver could well understand.

"Taking Three as the subject to reason about-- A convenient number to state-- We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

"The result we proceed to divide, as you see, By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two: Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be Exactly and perfectly true.

"The method employed I would gladly explain, While I have it so clear in my head,

The Hunting of the Snark