Today's Stichomancy for Hugh Jackman

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

sweet Song. For me it is a serious matter. `Life is real, life is earnest, and the Grave is not its goal,'" I quoted in impasioned tones.

(Because that is the way I feel. How can the Grave be its goal? THERE MUST BE SOMETHING BEYOND. I have thought it all out, and I beleive in a world beyond, but not in a hell. Hell, I beleive, is the state of mind one gets into in this world as a result of one's wicked Acts or one's wicked Thoughts, and is in one's self.)

As I have said, the other side of the Compromise was that I was not to carry Flasks with me, or drink any punch at parties if it had a stick in it, and you can generally find out by the taste. For if it is what Carter Brooks calls "loaded" it stings your tongue. Or if

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad:

fighting against this false fate. I don't know even if I was sure myself where the truth of the matter began. The conviction that it would end disas- trously had been driven into me by all the succes- sive shocks my sense of security had received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg's baseless gossip had the power to bring about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk could put my ship ashore.

I have already explained how fatal this last

Falk

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen:

must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am going away myself."

"No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you to stay where you are." And upon Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added: "Lizzy, I INSIST upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins."

Elizabeth would not oppose such and injunction-- and a moment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again and tried to conceal, by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion.

Pride and Prejudice

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 Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov:

service. He was taken, poor chap, for a soldier, and not even granted exemption. They shaved his head and packed him off to Poland. It was God's will; there was nothing to be done. When he said good-bye to his wife in the yard, he bore it all right; but as he glanced up at the hay-loft and his pigeons for the last time, he burst out crying. It was pitiful to see him.

"At first Mashenka got her mother to stay with her, that she mightn't be dull all alone; she stayed till the baby -- this very Kuzka here -- was born, and then she went off to Oboyan to another married daughter's and left Mashenka alone with the baby. There were five peasants -- the carriers -- a drunken saucy lot;