Today's Stichomancy for Robert De Niro

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare:

He cried upon it at the merest loss, And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent; Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

LORD. Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet, I would esteem him worth a dozen such. But sup them well, and look unto them all; To-morrow I intend to hunt again.

FIRST HUNTSMAN. I will, my lord.

LORD.

The Taming of the Shrew

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman:

"And I couldn't bring the potatoes, because the outside cellar door was locked," said Arnold Car- ruth. "I had to go down the back stairs and out the south door, and the inside cellar door opens out of our dining-room, and I daren't go in there."

"Then we might as well go home," said Johnny Trumbull. "If I had been you, Jim Patterson, I would have brought that old hen if her tail-feathers had come out. Seems to me you scare awful easy."

"Guess if you had heard her squawk!" said Jim, resentfully. "If you want to try to lick me, come on,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad:

honourable scruples she took good care that he should taste no flavour of misgivings in the cup. Being older it was she who imparted its character to the situation. As to the man if he had any superiority of his own it was simply the superiority of him who loves with the greater self-surrender.

This is what appears from the pages I have discreetly suppressed - partly out of regard for the pages themselves. In every, even terrestrial, mystery there is as it were a sacred core. A sustained commentary on love is not fit for every eye. A universal experience is exactly the sort of thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in a particular instance.

The Arrow of Gold

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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair:

those who were near him; and, at last, on one of these occasions, his glance rested on Jurgis. There seemed to be a slight hint of inquiry about it, and a sudden impulse seized the other. He stepped forward.

"I wanted to thank you, sir!" he began, in breathless haste. "I could not go away without telling you how much--how glad I am I heard you. I--I didn't know anything about it all--"

The big man with the spectacles, who had moved away, came back at this moment. "The comrade is too tired to talk to any one--" he began; but the other held up his hand.

"Wait," he said. "He has something to say to me." And then he