Today's Stichomancy for Ron Howard

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake:

And court the fair eyed dew, to take me to her shining tent The weeping virgin, trembling kneels before the risen sun. Till we arise link'd in a golden band and never part: But walk united bearing food to all our tender flowers.

Dost thou O little cloud? I fear that I am not like thee: For I walk through the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers: But I feed not the little flowers: I hear the warbling birds, But I feed not the warbling birds, they fly and seek their food: But Thel delights in these no more because I fade away And all shall say, without a use this shining women liv'd, Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms.

Poems of William Blake

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. Yet no. In a solitary window a light is flickering where some good burgher is mending his boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night and powers of heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite vault--how lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies spread in an intangible, yet audible, silence! Freshly does the lulling breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as he begins to be conscious of your weight. Then again you awake, but this time to find yourself confronted with only fields and steppes. Everywhere in the ascendant is the desolation of space. But suddenly

Dead Souls

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen:

made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton's return, as to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance, without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them.

Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence of any body equal to him in person or goodness--and did, in truth, prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an inclination of that sort unrequited, that she could not comprehend its continuing very long in equal force.

If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do,

Emma

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 Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac:

pronounce and carry out the sentence. But I am about to fulfil a duty, not a desire of vengeance of any kind. The cruellest revenge of all, I think, is scorn of revenge when it is in our power to take it. Perhaps I shall be the minister of your pleasures; who knows? Perhaps from this time forth, as you gracefully wear the tokens of disgrace by which society marks out the criminal, you may perforce learn something of the convict's sense of honour. And then, you will love!"

The Duchess sat listening; her meekness was unfeigned; it was no coquettish device. When she spoke at last, it was after a silence.