Today's Stichomancy for Woody Allen

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton:

transaction which seemed to have put her in his power; but her mind shrank from any unusual application, and she was always helplessly puzzled by figures. Moreover she had not seen Trenor since the day of the Van Osburgh wedding, and in his continued absence the trace of Rosedale's words was soon effaced by other impressions.

When the opening night of the opera came, her apprehensions had so completely vanished that the sight of Trenor's ruddy countenance in the back of Mr. Rosedale's box filled her with a sense of pleasant reassurance. Lily had not quite reconciled herself to the necessity of appearing as Rosedale's guest on so

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy:

an end to the position she found herself in. Thus she lay in absolute stillness, scarcely venturing to breathe, and, wondering what he was going to do with her, suffered herself to be borne out upon the landing.

"My wife--dead, dead!" he said.

He paused in his labours for a moment to lean with her against the banister. Was he going to throw her down? Self-solicitude was near extinction in her, and in the knowledge that he had planned to depart on the morrow, possibly for always, she lay in his arms in this precarious position with a sense rather of luxury than

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest:

The man who wants a garden fair............... 56 There is no star within the flag.............. 160 There must be great rejoicin' on the Golden Shore to-day................................ 54 There's a heap of pent-up goodness............ 84 There's a lot of joy in the smiling world..... 40 There's a wondrous smell of spices............ 66 There's nothing that builds up a toil-weary soul........................................ 102 There was a bear -- his name was Jim.......... 134 The skies are blue and the sun is out......... 78

A Heap O' Livin'

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 Gorgias by Plato:

hearing Gorgias display his rhetoric, but of interrogating him concerning the nature of his art. Callicles proposes that they shall go with him to his own house, where Gorgias is staying. There they find the great rhetorician and his younger friend and disciple Polus.

SOCRATES: Put the question to him, Chaerephon.

CHAEREPHON: What question?

SOCRATES: Who is he?--such a question as would elicit from a man the answer, 'I am a cobbler.'

Polus suggests that Gorgias may be tired, and desires to answer for him. 'Who is Gorgias?' asks Chaerephon, imitating the manner of his master Socrates. 'One of the best of men, and a proficient in the best and