Today's Stichomancy for Tom Leykis

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator:

been struck and beaten and endured every other form of ill-usage which madmen are wont to inflict? Consider, my dear friend: may it not be quite otherwise?

ALCIBIADES: Why, Socrates, how is that possible? I must have been mistaken.

SOCRATES: So it seems to me. But perhaps we may consider the matter thus:--

ALCIBIADES: How?

SOCRATES: I will tell you. We think that some are sick; do we not?

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And must every sick person either have the gout, or be in a

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

terraces dotted with black speckles; for such is the aspect of the vineyards of Issoudun during seven months of the year. The vine-growers cut the plants down yearly, leaving only an ugly stump, without support, sheltered by a barrel. The traveller arriving from Vierzon, Vatan, or Chateauroux, his eyes weary with monotonous plains, is agreeably surprised by the meadows of Issoudun,--the oasis of this part of Berry, which supplies the inhabitants with vegetables throughout a region of thirty miles in circumference. Below the suburb of Rome, lies a vast tract entirely covered with kitchen-gardens, and divided into two sections, which bear the name of upper and lower Baltan. A long avenue of poplars leads from the town across the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith:

Carl was coming up the path. The young Swede was bareheaded, the short blond curls glistening in the light; his throat was bare too, so that one could see the big muscles in his neck. Jennie always liked him with his throat bare; it reminded her of a hero she had once seen in a play, who stormed a fort and rescued all the starving women.

"Da brown horse seek; batta come to stabble an' see him," Carl said, going direct to the porch, where he stood in front of Tom, resting one hand on his hip, his eyes never wandering from her face. He knew where Jennie was, but he never looked.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Tom, her thoughts far away at

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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson:

he has a far higher notion of the blank that he will make by dying. A young man feels himself one too many in the world; his is a painful situation: he has no calling; no obvious utility; no ties, but to his parents. and these he is sure to disregard. I do not think that a proper allowance has been made for this true cause of suffering in youth; but by the mere fact of a prolonged existence, we outgrow either the fact or else the feeling. Either we become so callously accustomed to our own useless figure in the world, or else - and this, thank God, in the majority of cases - we so collect about us the interest or the love of our fellows, so multiply our