Today's Stichomancy for Lucy Liu

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name.

"Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" shouted Mrs. Wilson. "I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai----"

Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.

Then there were bloody towels upon the bath-room floor, and women's voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain. Mr. McKee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door.

The Great Gatsby

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy:

It should be definitely understood in considering this case that even to the time of our last interview with Libby, after she had acknowledged her own extensive prevarications, we had evidences of the unreliability of her word. In giving details she never made any special effort to tell the truth, whether it was in regard to the date of her father's death or any other immaterial detail. We were inclined to classify her as a pathological liar, as well as a case of pathological false accusation. Her traits as a liar and a generally difficult case have, we learn, been maintained during her stay up to the present time in an institution for delinquent girls.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad:

he murmured piously. "When love enters a man's heart he is like a child--without any understanding. Be merciful, Lakamba," he added, twitching the corner of the Rajah's sarong warningly.

Lakamba snatched away the skirt of the sarong angrily. Under the dawning comprehension of intolerable embarrassments caused by Dain's return to Sambir he began to lose such composure as he had been, till then, able to maintain; and now he raised his voice loudly above the whistling of the wind and the patter of rain on the roof in the hard squall passing over the house.

"You came here first as a trader with sweet words and great promises, asking me to look the other way while you worked your

Almayer's Folly

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 On Horsemanship by Xenophon:

at once become dilated.

[21] Or, "in the racecourse or on the exercising-ground how readily he distends his nostrils."

A comparatively large crest and small ears give a more typical and horse-like appearance to the head, whilst lofty withers again allow the rider a surer seat and a stronger adhesion between the shoulders and the body.[22]

[22] Or if with L. D. [{kai to somati}], transl. "adhesion to the horse's shoulders."

A "double spine,"[23] again, is at once softer to sit on than a single, and more pleasing to the eye. So, too, a fairly deep side

On Horsemanship