Today's Stichomancy for Tom Hanks

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe:

at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colours and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale:

Ranged themselves reproachfully Round my bed.

But I could not heed them, For I seemed to see The eyes of my new love Fixed on me.

Old love, old love, How can I be true? Shall I be faithless to myself Or to you?

The Kiss

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad:

before me, creating a very dangerous situation. I felt slightly outraged by this ingenuity in piling trouble upon a man.

"I wouldn't have got into that mess," I suggested, mildly. "I could have seen that ship before."

He never stirred the least bit.

"No, you couldn't. The weather's thick."

"Oh! I didn't know," I apologized blankly.

I suppose that after all I managed to stave off the smash with sufficient approach to verisimilitude, and the ghastly business went on. You must understand that the scheme of the test he was applying to me was, I gathered, a homeward passage--the sort of

A Personal Record

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 Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac:

this treasure from their peaceful garret. Once more he became a lover rather than an artist; scruples convulsed his heart as he saw the eye of the old painter regain its youth and, with the artist's habit, disrobe as it were the beauteous form of the young girl. He was seized with the jealous frenzy of a true lover.

"Gillette!" he cried; "let us go."

At this cry, with its accent of love, his mistress raised her eyes joyfully and looked at him; then she ran into his arms.

"Ah! you love me still?" she whispered, bursting into tears.

Though she had had strength to hide her suffering, she had none to hide her joy.