Today's Stichomancy for Barbara Streisand

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister:

it everywhere. But not here. Have you ever noticed," he now inquired with continued transparency, "how much harder they are on each other than we are on them?"

"Oh, yes! I've noticed that." I surmised it was this sort of thing he had earlier choked himself off from telling me in his unfinished complaint about his aunt; but I was to learn later that on this occasion it was upon the poor boy himself and not on the smoking habits of Miss Rieppe, that his aunt had heavily descended. I also reflected that if cigarettes were the only thing he deprecated in the lady of his choice, the lost illusion might be coaxed back. The trouble was that deprecated something fairly distant from cigarettes. The cake was my quite sufficient trouble;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift:

transformation of sexes, (the effect of that configuration of the celestial bodies) the human males being turn'd into females, and the human females into males.

The Egyptians have represented this great transformation by several significant hieroglyphicks, particularly one very remarkable. There are carv'd upon an obelisk, a barber and a midwife; the barber delivers his razor to the midwife, and she her swadling-cloaths to the barber. Accordingly Thales Milesius (who like the rest of his countrymen, borrow'd his learning from the Egyptians) after having computed the time of this famous conjunction, "Then," says he, "shall men and women mutually

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

first to No. 14 Cathedral Lane, where Muller told Berner to come with him. He found Mr. Fellner ready to go also, and it was with great difficulty that he could dissuade the invalid, who was greatly fatigued by his morning visit to the police station, from joining them.

The carriages then drove off more quickly than before. It was now quite dark, a gloomy stormy winter evening. Muller had taken his place on the box of his cab and sat peering out into the darkness. In spite of the sharp wind and the ice that blew against his face the detective could see that they were going out from the more closely built up portions of the city, and were now in new streets with

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 A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter:

LITTLE Benjamin said, "It spoils people's clothes to squeeze under a gate; the proper way to get in, is to climb down a pear tree."

Peter fell down head first; but it was of no consequence, as the bed below was newly raked and quite soft.

IT had been sown with lettuces.

They left a great many odd