Today's Stichomancy for Peter O'Toole

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard:

Accordingly after breakfast, having rubbed some oil upon my leg, which was very sore from the cub's tongue, I took the driver, Tom, who did not half like the business, and having armed myself with an ordinary double No. 12 smoothbore, the first breechloader I ever had, I started. I took the smoothbore because it shot a bullet very well; and my experience has been that a round ball from a smoothbore is quite as effective against a lion as an express bullet. The lion is soft, and not a difficult animal to finish if you hit him anywhere in the body. A buck takes far more killing.

"Well, I started, and the first thing I set to work to do was to try to discover whereabouts the brutes lay up for the day. About three hundred

Long Odds

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert:

in the administration of woods and forests, he had at last, when he was thirty-six years old, by a divine inspiration, found his vocation: registrature! and he displayed such a high ability that an inspector had offered him his daughter and his influence.

Paul, who had become quite settled, brought his bride to visit his mother.

But she looked down upon the customs of Pont-l'Eveque, put on airs, and hurt Felicite's feelings. Madame Aubain felt relieved when she left.

The following week they learned of Monsieur Bourais' death in an inn. There were rumours of suicide, which were confirmed; doubts concerning

A Simple Soul

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy:

and mean very little] J. M. Nikiforoff!"

"I am he," said the dignified-looking man, well versed in the habits of the law court.

"Ivan Semionovitch Ivanoff, retired colonel!

"Here!" replied a thin man, in the uniform of a retired officer.

"Merchant of the Second Guild, Peter Baklasheff!"

"Here we are, ready!" said the good-humoured merchant, with a broad smile.

"Lieutenant of the Guards, Prince Dmitri Nekhludoff!"

"I am he," answered Nekhludoff.

The usher bowed to him, looking over his pince-nez, politely and

Resurrection

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 Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain:

three hundred any time, and said if he wanted the gale, and wanted it blowing the right direction, he only had to go up higher or down lower to find it."

"Well, then, it's just as I reckoned. The professor lied."

"Why?"

"Because if we was going so fast we ought to be past Illinois, oughtn't we?"

"Certainly."

"Well, we ain't."

"What's the reason we ain't?"