Today's Stichomancy for Tyra Banks

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

they came to me yesterday for thirty thousand francs. I'm cleaned out, and so completely that I was just in the act of sending to Cerizet for a hundred louis, when I lost at lansquenet this morning, at Jenny Cadine's."

"You must indeed me hard-up if you can't oblige this poor Bixiou," said Leon de Lora; "for he can be very sharp-tongued when he hasn't a sou."

"Well," said Bixiou, "I could never say anything but good of Vauvinet; he's full of goods."

"My dear friend," said Vauvinet, "if I had the money, I couldn't possibly discount, even at fifty per cent, notes which are drawn by

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis:

owner of the property exaggerated when he put it into my hands, and it certainly isn't my place to go proving my principal a liar! And then most folks are so darn crooked themselves that they expect a fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough to never whoop the ante I'd get the credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I got to toot my own horn, like a lawyer defending a client--his bounden duty, ain't it, to bring out the poor dub's good points? Why, the Judge himself would bawl out a lawyer that didn't, even if they both knew the guy was guilty! But even so, I don't pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow that's willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be shot!"

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac:

"There, there, Dutchman, you are trying to hoodwink me," said the king, with frowning brows, "or else you have already done so."

"Sire! can you doubt my devotion? you, who are the only man I love!"

"All that is talk," returned the king, looking the other in the eyes. "You need not have waited till this moment to do me that service. You are selling me your influence--Pasques-Dieu! to me, Louis XI.! Are you the master, and am I your servant?"

"Ah, sire," said the old man, "I was waiting to surprise you agreeably with news of the arrangements I had made for you in Ghent; I was awaiting confirmation from Oosterlinck through that apprentice. What has become of that young man?"

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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

And bour-tree blossom is fair to see!

Unco weather hae we been through: The mune glowered, and the wind blew, And the rain it rained on him and me, And bour-tree blossom is fair to see!

Dwelling his lane but house or hauld, Aft he was wet and aft was cauld; I warmed him wi' my briest and knee - And bour-tree blossom is fair to see!

There was nae voice of beast ae man, But the tree soughed and the burn ran,