Today's Stichomancy for Tim Burton

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White:

stopped him with a bullet in the spine. The first shot had smashed a hole in his head, just behind the eye, about the size of an ordinary coffee cup. In spite of this wound, which would have been instantly fatal to any warm-blooded animal, the creature was so little affected that it actually reacted to a slight noise made at some distance from where it lay. Of course the wound would probably have been fatal in the long run.

The best spot to shoot at, indeed, is not the head but the spine immediately back of the head.

These brutes are exceedingly powerful. They are capable of taking down horses and cattle, with no particular effort. This I know

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac:

"Well, Monsieur /de/ Granville, you are on the high road!"

"So long as I sit by your Excellency's side--"

"Nay, I am not jesting," said the Minister. "You were called two years since, and your defence in the case of Simeuse and Hauteserre had raised you high in your profession."

"I had supposed that my interest in those unfortunate emigres had done me no good."

"You are still very young," said the great man gravely. "But the High Chancellor," he went on, after a pause, "was greatly pleased with you this evening. Get a judgeship in the lower courts; we want men. The nephew of a man in whom Cambaceres and I take great interest must not

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson:

stay in Taiarapu) a cause of some diversion to that mirthful people, the inhabitants.

Note 3, "COVERED AN OVEN." The cooking fire is made in a hole in the ground, and is then buried.

Note 4, "FLIES." This is perhaps an anachronism. Even speaking of to-day in Tahiti, the phrase would have to be understood as referring mainly to mosquitoes, and these only in watered valleys with close woods, such as I suppose to form the surroundings of Rahero's homestead. Quarter of a mile away, where the air moves freely, you shall look in vain for one.

Ballads

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 Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini:

lesson was at an end. Andre-Louis tapped on the door.

It was opened by a tall, slender, gracefully proportioned man of perhaps forty. Black silk breeches and stockings ending in light shoes clothed him from the waist down. Above he was encased to the chin in a closely fitting plastron of leather, His face was aquiline and swarthy, his eyes full and dark, his mouth firm and his clubbed hair was of a lustrous black with here and there a thread of silver showing.

in the crook of his left arm he carried a fencing-mask, a thing of leather with a wire grating to protect the eyes. His keen glance played over Andre-Louis from head to foot.