Today's Stichomancy for Penelope Cruz

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

suffering----"

At these words Adelaide raised her head, looked at her lover, and her anxious eyes had now no hint of reproach.

"You must have thought us quite indifferent to any good or ill that may befall you?" said the old lady.

"I was wrong," he replied. "Still, there are forms of pain which we know not how to confide to any one, even to a friendship of older date than that with which you honor me."

"The sincerity and strength of friendship are not to be measured by time. I have seen old friends who had not a tear to bestow on misfortune," said the Baroness, nodding sadly.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy:

and when I am ready I'll call you."

Charley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. He returned to the fuelhouse door.

"Did you whistle, Miss Vye?"

"Yes; come in," reached him in Eustacia's voice from a back quarter. "I must not strike a light till the door is shut, or it may be seen shining. Push your hat into the hole through to the wash-house, if you can feel your way across."

Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing herself to be changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from top to toe. Perhaps she quailed a little

Return of the Native

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

ers; and my nerves must have been exasperated into an extraordinary sensibility. I let the bottle smash itself on the floor. The stuff, whatever it was, felt gritty under the sole of my shoe. I snatched up the next bottle and then the next. The weight alone told the tale. One after another they fell, breaking at my feet, not because I threw them down in my dismay, but slipping through my fingers as if this disclosure were too much for my strength.

It is a fact that the very greatness of a mental

The Shadow Line

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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare:

That to Laertes I forgot my selfe; For by the image of my Cause, I see The Portraiture of his; Ile count his fauours: But sure the brauery of his griefe did put me Into a Towring passion

Hor. Peace, who comes heere? Enter young Osricke.

Osr. Your Lordship is right welcome back to Denmarke

Ham. I humbly thank you Sir, dost know this waterflie? Hor. No my good Lord

Ham. Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to

Hamlet