Today's Stichomancy for Michael Jordan

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

being fulminated against the ex-mayor. Nanon was spinning, and the whirr of her wheel was the only sound heard beneath the gray rafters of that silent hall.

"We don't waste our tongues," she said, showing her teeth, as large and white as peeled almonds.

"Nothing should be wasted," answered Grandet, rousing himself from his reverie. He saw a perspective of eight millions in three years, and he was sailing along that sheet of gold. "Let us go to bed. I will bid my nephew good-night for the rest of you, and see if he will take anything."

Madame Grandet remained on the landing of the first storey to hear the

Eugenie Grandet

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis:

velvet crown.

It's only recently that young women could afford to wear black, even when it was becoming. When Mamma was young it was a sign that youth was past.

And nowadays, age doesn't matter so much one way or another. A person is the age one FEELS, you know.

Have you thought deeply on Hypnagogic Illu- sions? We're planning to take them up.

TWILIGHT SLEEP

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale:

Knowing and known unchangeably.

VII

In Spring, Santa Barbara

I have been happy two weeks together, My love is coming home to me, Gold and silver is the weather And smooth as lapis is the sea.

The earth has turned its brown to green After three nights of humming rain, And in the valleys peck and preen Linnets with a scarlet stain.

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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson:

It is not yours, but mine: give me the child' Ceased all on tremble: piteous was the cry: So stood the unhappy mother open-mouthed, And turned each face her way: wan was her cheek With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst The laces toward her babe; but she nor cared Nor knew it, clamouring on, till Ida heard, Looked up, and rising slowly from me, stood