Today's Stichomancy for Hugh Jackman

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy:

awkward member of the party; for, though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal religionist, even the best-versed Christologist of the three, there was alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him. To neither Felix nor Cuthbert had he ventured to mention Tess.

His mother made him sandwiches, and his father accompanied him, on his own mare, a little way along the road. Having fairly well advanced his own affairs Angel listened in a willing silence, as they jogged on

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather:

our wanderings, or in what baskets and bundles and theatre trunks it hasn't been stowed away. We always had our tea out of those blue cups when I was a little girl, sometimes in the queerest lodgings, and sometimes on a trunk at the theatre--queer theatres, for that matter."

It was a wonderful little dinner. There was watercress soup, and sole, and a delightful omelette stuffed with mushrooms and truffles, and two small rare ducklings, and artichokes, and a dry yellow Rhone wine of which Bartley

Alexander's Bridge

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo:

rummaging in a heap of refuse by the light of a street lantern; the child jostled her as he passed, then recoiled, exclaiming:--

"Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!"

He pronounced the word enormous the second time with a jeering swell of the voice which might be tolerably well represented by capitals: "an enormous, ENORMOUS dog."

The old woman straightened herself up in a fury.

"Nasty brat!" she grumbled. "If I hadn't been bending over, I know well where I would have planted my foot on you."

The boy was already far away.

"Kisss! kisss!" he cried. "After that, I don't think I was mistaken!"

Les Miserables

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 The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift:

For gods, their betters, are too wise To value that which men despise. "And then," said she, "my son and I Must stroll in air 'twixt earth and sky: Or else, shut out from heaven and earth, Fly to the sea, my place of birth; There live with daggled mermaids pent, And keep on fish perpetual Lent." But since the case appeared so nice, She thought it best to take advice. The Muses, by their king's permission,