Today's Stichomancy for Alec Guinness

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin:

letter. She sat holding it in her hand, while the music penetrated her whole being like an effulgence, warming and brightening the dark places of her soul. It prepared her for joy and exultation.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, letting the letter fall to the floor. "Why did you not tell me?" She went and grasped Mademoiselle's hands up from the keys. "Oh! unkind! malicious! Why did you not tell me?"

"That he was coming back? No great news, ma foi. I wonder he did not come long ago."

"But when, when?" cried Edna, impatiently. "He does not say when."

"He says `very soon.' You know as much about it as I do; it is all in the letter."

Awakening & Selected Short Stories

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato:

on a political career.

ALCIBIADES: There, I think, Socrates, that you are right; I do not suppose, however, that the Spartan generals or the great king are really different from anybody else.

SOCRATES: But, my dear friend, do consider what you are saying.

ALCIBIADES: What am I to consider?

SOCRATES: In the first place, will you be more likely to take care of yourself, if you are in a wholesome fear and dread of them, or if you are not?

ALCIBIADES: Clearly, if I have such a fear of them.

SOCRATES: And do you think that you will sustain any injury if you take

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

with water again, and the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl climbed to the top of the Great Dome and replaced the pane of glass that had been removed to allow Glinda and her followers to enter.

When evening came Ozma ordered a great feast prepared, to which every Skeezer was invited. The village was beautifully decorated and brilliantly lighted and there was music and dancing until a late hour to celebrate the liberation of the people. For the Skeezers had been freed, not only from the water of the lake but from the cruelty of their former Queen.

Glinda of Oz

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 Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

and send him a fake telegram the next morning that his mother is sick. I've done that more than once.

I sat down on the side of the bed and put on my slippers.

"What did he look like?" I asked. "Could you see him?"

She uncovered one eye.

"Not--not distinctly," she said. "I--think he was large, and-- and rather handsome. That beast of a dog must have got in my room and was asleep under the bed, for it wakened me by snarling."

There was nothing in that to make me nervous, but it did. As I put on my kimono I was thinking pretty hard.