Today's Stichomancy for Hugh Grant

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry:

"'Negotiations,' says old Doc, 'will be opened between the two governments at once. You will know later to-day if they are successful.'

"About four in the afternoon a soldier in red trousers brings a paper round to the jail, and they unlocks the door and I walks out. The guard at the door bows and I bows, and I steps into the grass and wades around to Doc Millikin's shack.

"Doc was sitting in his hammock playing 'Dixie,' soft and low and out of tune, on his flute. I interrupted him at 'Look away! look away!' and shook his hand for five minutes.

"'I never thought,' says Doc, taking a chew fretfully, 'that I'd ever

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle:

not a pin to choose between them--only that one was called a wise man and the other a simpleton.

One day the weather was cold, and when Babo came home from gathering rushes he found no fire in the house. So off he went to his neighbor the wise man. "Will you give me a live coal to start my fire?" said he.

"Yes, I will do that," said Simon Agricola; "But how will you carry the coal home?"

"Oh!" said Babo, "I will just take it in my hand."

"In your hand?"

"In my hand."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

down to safety in the corridor beyond. Not ten minutes later we came into a vast circular apartment of white marble, the walls of which were inlaid with gold in the strange hieroglyphics of the First Born. From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column extended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowly revolved. I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun!

The Warlord of Mars

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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner:

Sannie, and she laughed again. "I always did know he was not right; but this evening any one could see it," she added, wiping the tears of mirth from her face. "His eyes are as wild as if the devil was in them. He never was like other children. The dear Lord knows, if he doesn't walk alone for hours talking to himself. If you sit in the room with him you can see his lips moving the whole time; and if you talk to him twenty times he doesn't hear you. Daft-eyes; he's as mad as mad can be."

This repetition of the word mad conveyed meaning to Bonaparte's mind. He left off paddling his toes in the water.

"Mad, mad? I know that kind of mad," said Bonaparte, "and I know the thing to give for it. The front end of a little horsewhip, the tip! Nice thing;