Today's Stichomancy for Robert Downey Jr.

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

of the scientist, but now that the highest tide of the young man's hatred had come and gone he found himself for the first time assailed by doubts.

Suddenly he recalled the fact that the man whose life he sought was the father of the beautiful creature he adored. Perhaps she loved him and would be unhappy were he taken away from her. Number Thirteen did not know, of course, but the idea obtruded itself, and had sufficient weight to cause him to remain seated upon the edge of the bed meditating upon the act he contemplated. He had by no means given up the idea of killing

The Monster Men

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis:

were determined on a change.

I was passing the office of the opposition editor late at night after canvassing for votes all day. I thought of the nasty slurs he had written about me and my whole ancestry. I had fought hard to educate myself and had been helpful to others. My self-respect revolted under this editor's malicious goading. I happened to see him in his front office, and on a sudden impulse, I went in, took hold of his collar, and gave him a good licking.

The next day he bawled me out worse than ever. He said I was not only a wild Welshman and a blockhead, but what is more deadly still, I was a gorilla and an assassin.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Laches by Plato:

to fight, and wisely calculates and knows that others will help him, and that there will be fewer and inferior men against him than there are with him; and suppose that he has also advantages of position; would you say of such a one who endures with all this wisdom and preparation, that he, or some man in the opposing army who is in the opposite circumstances to these and yet endures and remains at his post, is the braver?

LACHES: I should say that the latter, Socrates, was the braver.

SOCRATES: But, surely, this is a foolish endurance in comparison with the other?

LACHES: That is true.

SOCRATES: Then you would say that he who in an engagement of cavalry

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 Daisy Miller by Henry James:

They evidently saw no one; they were too deeply occupied with each other. When they reached the low garden wall, they stood a moment looking off at the great flat-topped pine clusters of the Villa Borghese; then Giovanelli seated himself, familiarly, upon the broad ledge of the wall. The western sun in the opposite sky sent out a brilliant shaft through a couple of cloud bars, whereupon Daisy's companion took her parasol out of her hands and opened it. She came a little nearer, and he held the parasol over her; then, still holding it, he let it rest upon her shoulder, so that both of their heads were hidden from Winterbourne.