Today's Stichomancy for Penelope Cruz

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

Suddenly he burst into tears.

"Oh, yes!" he cried, "I am innocent! I have not killed a man! I remember my dreams. I was playing at base with my schoolmates. I couldn't have cut off the head of a man while I dreamed I was running."

Then, in spite of these gleams of hope, which gave him at times some calmness, he felt a remorse which crushed him. He had, beyond all question, raised his arm to kill that man. He judged himself; and he felt that his heart was not innocent after committing that crime in his mind.

"And yet, I AM good!" he cried. "Oh, my poor mother! Perhaps at this

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain:

spun, round and round like tops, and the petticoats stood out on a slant, and it was the prettiest thing I ever see, and made me drunk to look at it. They was all Moslems, Tom said, and when I asked him what a Moslem was, he said it was a person that wasn't a Presbyterian. So there is plenty of them in Missouri, though I didn't know it before.

We didn't see half there was to see in Cairo, because Tom was in such a sweat to hunt out places that was celebrated in history. We had a most tiresome time to find the granary where Joseph stored up the grain

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:

maidenly bashfulness.

(Clara casts down her eyes, takes his hand, and leans upon him.)

Egmont. I understand thee, dearest! Thou mayst raise thine eyes. (He kisses her eyes.)

Clara. Let me be silent! Let me embrace thee! Let me look into thine eyes, and find there everything--hope and comfort, joy and sorrow! (She embraces and gazes on him.) Tell me! Oh, tell me! It seems so strange--art thou indeed Egmont! Count Egmont! The great Egmont, who makes so much noise in the world, who figures in the newspapers, who is the support and stay of the provinces?

Egmont

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 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini:

"Damn me!" he roared. "Have I sat at table with a traitor?" And he thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on the sanded floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them, some few amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord, came hurrying to assist Richard to his feet.

"Mr. Westmacott," he whispered in the rash fool's ear, "you were best away."

Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had about his waist. He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside the veil that obscured his wits. What had happened? What had he said?