Today's Stichomancy for Salma Hayek

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

And explained all the while in a popular style Which the Beaver could well understand.

"Taking Three as the subject to reason about-- A convenient number to state-- We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

"The result we proceed to divide, as you see, By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two: Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be Exactly and perfectly true.

"The method employed I would gladly explain,

The Hunting of the Snark

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar:

picture of woe-begone misery.

"Hello, Mr. Baptiste," cried a big, brawny Irishman, "sure an' you look, as if you was about to be hanged."

"Ah, mon Dieu," said Mr. Baptiste, "dose fruit ship be ruined fo' dees strik'."

"Damn the fruit!" cheerily replied the Irishman, artistically disposing of a mouthful of tobacco juice. "It ain't the fruit we care about, it's the cotton."

"Hear! hear!" cried a dozen lusty comrades.

Mr. Baptiste shook his head and moved sorrowfully away.

"Hey, by howly St. Patrick, here's that little fruit-eater!"

The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot:

Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting, I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see

At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220 Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights

The Waste Land

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 Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy:

incident which brought her to us. The diagnosis had been made that it was a case of mild St. Vitus dance. During all the year Nellie had been regarded as in general unreliable, but nothing of importance had happened prior to the above episode.

Nellie's story as told to us seemed coherent enough. Apparently she had entire memory of her past actions and, in general, of what she had said. Her own statements convinced us as much as anything else of her unreliability at times. It seems she had run away and gone to a picture show and had fallen asleep there. When she got out it was very late, but it was election night and people were about on the street. She finally was accosted by a