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 The Contrast by Royall Tyler:

repeal being refused, they subscribed the necessary funds to erect a theater and invited the American Com- pany to visit Boston to give a series of performances there, which invitation was accepted. There was some interference on the part of the authorities, but the new theater was erected and performances publicly given there, while the prohibitory law became a dead letter.

It will be noticed that the frontispiece is from a drawing by Dunlap, which must have been done by him shortly after his return from England, where he had been studying art as a pupil under Benjamin West.

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

IN EARLY YOUTH THE SHADOW LINE OF THEIR GENERATION WITH LOVE

PART ONE

THE SHADOW LINE

--D'autre fois, calme plat, grand miroir De mon desespoir. --BAUDELAIRE

ONLY the young have such moments. I don't mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privi-

The Shadow Line

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare:

That ever was prince's child. Happy what follows! Thiou hast as chiding a nativity As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make, To herald thee from the womb: even at the first Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit, With all thou canst find here, Now, the good gods Throw their best eyes upon't!

{Enter two Sailors.]

FIRST SAILOR. What courage, sir? God save you!

PERICLES.

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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

it now they had got it. This is a smooth stone well planted in the foreheads of certain dilettanti radicals, after M'Laren's fashion, who are willing to give the working men words and wind, and votes and the like, and yet think to keep all the advantages, just or unjust, of the wealthier classes without abatement. I do hope wise men will not attempt to fight the working men on the head of this notorious injustice. Any such step will only precipitate the action of the newly enfranchised classes, and irritate them into acting hastily; when what we ought to desire should be that they should act warily and little for many years to come, until education and habit may make them the more fit.