Today's Stichomancy for Robert De Niro

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

What would have become of me had I learned at twenty that fame is a lie, that he whose books express the feelings hidden in my heart was incapable of feeling them himself? Oh! my friend, do you know what would have become of me? Shall I take you into the recesses of my soul? I should have gone to my father and said, "Bring me the son-in-law whom you desire; my will abdicates,--marry me to whom you please." And the man might have been a notary, banker, miser, fool, dullard, wearisome as a rainy day, common as the usher of a school, a manufacturer, or some brave soldier without two ideas,--he would have had a resigned and attentive servant in me. But what an awful suicide! never could my soul have expanded

Modeste Mignon

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

leaving ten to guard the ship and the girl. I had intended leaving Nobs behind, but he got away and joined me and was so happy over it that I hadn't the heart to send him back. We followed the stream upward through a beautiful country for about five miles, and then came upon its source in a little boulder-strewn clearing. From among the rocks bubbled fully twenty ice-cold springs. North of the clearing rose sandstone cliffs to a height of some fifty to seventy-five feet, with tall trees growing at their base and almost concealing them from our view. To the west the country was flat and sparsely wooded, and here it was that we saw our first game--a large red deer. It was grazing away from us and had not

The Land that Time Forgot

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

By malison of theirs is not so lost Eternal Love, that it cannot return, So long as hope has anything of green.

True is it, who in contumacy dies Of Holy Church, though penitent at last, Must wait upon the outside this bank

Thirty times told the time that he has been In his presumption, unless such decree Shorter by means of righteous prayers become.

See now if thou hast power to make me happy, By making known unto my good Costanza

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde:

Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled The Gorgon's head its leaden eyeballs rolled, And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield, And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold In passion impotent, while with blind gaze The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze.

The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast Divide the folded curtains of the night,