Today's Stichomancy for Lizzie Borden

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

than I am; and she certainly isn't a bit more dignified .... I wonder if it's because I feel so horribly small to-night that the place seems so horribly big."

She loved luxury: splendid things always made her feel handsome and high ceilings arrogant; she did not remember having ever before been oppressed by the evidences of wealth.

She laid down the brush and leaned her chin on her clasped hands .... Even now she could not understand what had made her take the cigars. She had always been alive to the value of her inherited scruples: her reasoned opinions were unusually free, but with regard to the things one couldn't reason about she was

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

The blind boy suddenly burst out weeping, shrieking and wailing.

"Where did I go? I did not go anywhere. . . With the bundle?. . . What bundle?"

This time the old woman heard, and she began to mutter:

"Hark at them plotting, and against a poor boy too! What are you touching him for? What has he done to you?"

I had enough of it, and went out, firmly resolved to find the key to the riddle.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer:

administrators, as well as radiological monitors. Many of these personnel were nonmilitary, but all worked on the Manhattan Project under the administration of the Army Corps of Engineers Manhattan Engineer District.

The Medical Group was divided into two monitoring groups, the Site Monitoring Group, which was responsible for onsite monitoring, and the Offsite Monitoring Group. Each reported to the Chief of the Medical Group, and each communicated with the other during the monitoring activities. In addition to these two groups, a small group of medical technicians provided radiation detection instruments to Medical Group personnel (1; 10).

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 Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Becomes a place where she can hide, While all the town and harbor side Vibrate with her seclusion.

We tell you, tapping on our brows, The story as it should be, -- As if the story of a house Were told, or ever could be; We'll have no kindly veil between Her visions and those we have seen, -- As if we guessed what hers have been, Or what they are or would be.