Today's Stichomancy for Michael Jackson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

day. We were baldly brutal--that's the only word for it. And Mr. Harbison, with his beautiful courtesy--the really sincere kind--tried to patch up one quarrel after another and failed. He rose superbly to the occasion, and made something that he called a South American goulash for luncheon, although it was too salty, and every one was thirsty the rest of the day.

Bella was horrid, of course. She froze Jim until he said he was going to sit in the refrigerator and cool the butter. She locked herself in the dressing room--it had been assigned to me, but that made no difference to Bella--and did her nails, and took three different baths, and refused to come to the table. And of

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac:

"Mignonne."

At the setting of the sun Mignonne gave, several times running, a profound melancholy cry. "She's been well brought up," said the lighthearted soldier; "she says her prayers." But this mental joke only occurred to him when he noticed what a pacific attitude his companion remained in. "Come, ma petite blonde, I'll let you go to bed first," he said to her, counting on the activity of his own legs to run away as quickly as possible, directly she was asleep, and seek another shelter for the night.

The soldier waited with impatience the hour of his flight, and when it had arrived he walked vigorously in the direction of the Nile; but

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac:

uniform. We mean to make an end of those curs now; the Gars is with them. I can't stop to tell you more. To the right, march! and don't administer any more shots to our own goatskins; you'll know ours by their cravats, which they twist round their necks and don't tie.

Gudin left his two wounded men under the apple-tree, and marched towards Galope-Chopine's cottage, which Beau-Pied had pointed out to him, the smoke from the chimney serving as a guide.

While the young officer was thus closing in upon the Chouans, the little detachment under Hulot had reached a point still parallel with that at which Gudin had arrived. The old soldier, at the head of his men, was silently gliding along the hedges with the ardor of a young

The Chouans

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 Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis:

putting personality into it.

I've a room I call the Ancestor's Room.

You know, when one has ancestors, one's ances- tral traditions keep one up to the mark, somehow. You know what I mean -- blood will tell, and all that. Ancestors help one to be sincere.

So I've finished my Ancestors' Room with all sorts of things to remind me of the dear dead-and- gone people I get my traditions from.

Heirlooms and portraits and things, you know.

Of course, all our own family heirlooms were