Today's Stichomancy for Steve McQueen

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

which we may walk and find no pitfalls in our way!'

"You will wonder what comparative anatomy has to do with a question of such importance to the future of society. Must we not attain to the conviction that man is the end of all earthly means before we ask whether he too is not the means to some end? If man is bound up with everything, is there not something above him with which he again is bound up? If he is the end-all of the explained transmutations that lead up to him, must he not be also the link between the visible and invisible creations?

"The activity of the universe is not absurd; it must tend to an end, and that end is surely not a social body constituted as ours

Louis Lambert

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac:

the staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling, "Just a word, Monseigneur," in the tone of familiarity assumed by men who know they are indispensable.

"What is it, my dear Desroches?" exclaimed the politician. "Has anything happened?"

"I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been brought up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain Samanon."

"Men whom I helped to make their millions!"

"Listen," whispered the lawyer. "Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London:

bother me. I've got to get ready for the ball."

Sitka Charley weighed out his pay and departed, carrying with him a letter to Loraine Lisznayi, the contents of which he correctly imagined to refer to a meeting at the water-hole of the hospital, at midnight, sharp.

Twice Freda sent messengers up to the Barracks, where the dance was in full swing, and as often they came back without answers. Then she did what only Freda could do--put on her furs, masked her face, and went up herself to the Governor's ball. Now there happened to be a custom--not an original one by any means--to

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 Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

for no mercy, nor could she hope to again escape him so easily as she had before, and so she sat with bowed head in the bottom of the swiftly moving craft, buried in anguished thoughts, hopeless and miserable.

Along the stretch of black river that the prahu and her consort covered that night Virginia Maxon saw no living thing other than a single figure in a small sampan which hugged the shadows of the shore as the two larger boats met and passed it, nor answered their hail.

Where von Horn and his two Dyak guides had landed, Muda Saffir's force disembarked and plunged into the jungle.

The Monster Men