Today's Stichomancy for Nicolas Cage

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll:

to how to get out of the difficulty. "You know much more about them than I do!"

"I accept them most gratefully! But you have not yet told me--" the Earl was beginning, when we were interrupted, to my great relief, by the arrival of Eric Lindon.

To Arthur, however, the new-comer was, I saw clearly, anything but welcome. His face clouded over: he drew a little back from the circle, and took no further part in the conversation, which was wholly maintained, for some minutes, by Lady Muriel and her lively cousin, who were discussing some new music that had just arrived from London.

"Do just try this one!" he pleaded. "The music looks easy to sing at

Sylvie and Bruno

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift:

with him; as his excellency is a foreigner, and a papist, he has no reason to rely on me for his justification; I shall only assure the world he is alive ---- but as he was bred to letters, and is master of a pen, let him use it in his own defence. In the mean time I shall present the publick with a faithful narrative of the ungenerous treatment and hard usage I have received from the virulent papers and malicious practices of this pretended astrologer.

A true and impartial account of the proceedings of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq; against me ----

The 28th of March, Anno Dom. 1708, being the night this

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

With much already learned, and more to learn, And more to follow. Lord! how I see him now, Pretending, maybe trying, to be like us. Whatever he may have meant, we never had him; He failed us, or escaped, or what you will, -- And there was that about him (God knows what, -- We'd flayed another had he tried it on us) That made as many of us as had wits More fond of all his easy distances Than one another's noise and clap-your-shoulder. But think you not, my friend, he'd never talk!

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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac:

THE DUC DE SORIA TO THE BARON DE MACUMER MADRID.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--You did not make me Duc de Soria in order that my actions should belie the name. How could I tolerate my happiness if I knew you to be a wanderer, deprived of the comforts which wealth everywhere commands? Neither Marie nor I will consent to marry till we hear that you have accepted the money which Urraca will hand over to you. These two millions are the fruit of your own savings and Marie's.

We have both prayed, kneeling before the same altar--and with what earnestness, God knows!--for your happiness. My dear brother, it cannot be that these prayers will remain unanswered. Heaven will send