Today's Stichomancy for Eva Mendes

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac:

aside into a window-bay to breathe the fresh air from the garden, "how are you getting on?"

"She is a married woman, my dear fellow."

"What does that matter?"

"Oh, deuce take it! I am a decent sort of man," replied the Colonel. "I have no idea of paying my addresses to a woman I cannot marry. Besides, Martial, she expressly told me that she did not intend to dance."

"Colonel, I will bet a hundred napoleons to your gray horse that she will dance with me this evening."

"Done!" said the Colonel, putting his hand in the coxcomb's.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall:

was reddened, declaring the presence of sulphuric acid; the second was browned, declaring the presence of the alkali soda. The dissolved salt, therefore, arranged in this fashion, was decomposed by the machine, exactly as it would have been by the voltaic current. When instead of using the positive conductor he used the negative, the positions of the acid and alkali were reversed. Thus he satisfied himself that chemical decomposition by the machine is obedient to the laws which rule decomposition by the pile.

And now he gradually abolishes those so-called poles, to the attraction of which electric decomposition had been ascribed. He connected a piece of turmeric paper moistened with the sulphate

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James:

things," he handsomely added, "immediately."

Strether liked it and felt it only too much; so "I say, don't lay traps for me!" he rather helplessly murmured.

"Well," his companion returned, "he's wonderfully kind to us."

"To us Americans you mean?"

"Oh no--he doesn't know anything about THAT. That's half the battle here--that you can never hear politics. We don't talk them. I mean to poor young wretches of all sorts. And yet it's always as charming as this; it's as if, by something in the air, our squalor didn't show. It puts us all back--into the last century."

"I'm afraid," Strether said, amused, "that it puts me rather

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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare:

Oh this is Counter you false Danish Dogges.

Noise within. Enter Laertes.

King. The doores are broke

Laer. Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without

All. No, let's come in

Laer. I pray you giue me leaue

Al. We will, we will

Laer. I thanke you: Keepe the doore. Oh thou vilde King, giue me my Father

Qu. Calmely good Laertes

Laer. That drop of blood, that calmes

Hamlet