Today's Stichomancy for Paul McCartney

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac:

"Thank you, no!" replied Rastignac. "When you want the government for an accomplice, my dear Maxime, you must provide a better-laid plot than that. From your manner this morning I supposed there was really something in all this, and so I ventured to disturb our excellent attorney-general, who knows how I value his advice. But really, your scheme seems to me too transparent and also too narrow not to be doomed to inevitable defeat. If I were not married, and could pretend to the hand of Mademoiselle Beauvisage, perhaps I should feel differently; of course you will do as you think best. I do not say that the government will not wish you well in your attempt, but it certainly cannot descend to make it with you."

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

I explain the nature of what I call the second best?

YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means.

STRANGER: I must again have recourse to my favourite images; through them, and them alone, can I describe kings and rulers.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What images?

STRANGER: The noble pilot and the wise physician, who 'is worth many another man'--in the similitude of these let us endeavour to discover some image of the king.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of an image?

STRANGER: Well, such as this:--Every man will reflect that he suffers strange things at the hands of both of them; the physician saves any whom

Statesman

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain:

became lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.

I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man. The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;' I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous a boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, all fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took a furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even this notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken. By this time he was picking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreast the woodyards; therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I

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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

hundred ducats these three years past. I ran after him, as though to claim the debt of him, and so entered the city with them."

"You entered the city, and wanted him to settle the debt!" said Bulba; "and he did not order you to be hung like a dog on the spot?"

"By heavens, he did want to hang me," replied the Jew; "his servants had already seized me and thrown a rope about my neck. But I besought the noble lord, and said that I would wait for the money as long as his lordship liked, and promised to lend him more if he would only help me to collect my debts from the other nobles; for I can tell my lord that the noble cornet had not a ducat in his pocket, although he has farms and estates and four castles and steppe-land that extends

Taras Bulba and Other Tales