Today's Stichomancy for Toni Braxton

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

And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright, And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, -

And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning, glad, I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

A LITTLE BOY LOST

'Nought loves another as itself, Nor venerates another so,

Songs of Innocence and Experience

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey:

this animal she bestrode must have been a bronc, for it did not take him long to elicit from Carley a muttered, "I don't know what bronc means, but it sounds like this pony acts."

Carley had inquired the animal's name from the young herder who had saddled him for her.

"Wal, I reckon he ain't got much of a name," replied the lad, with a grin, as he scratched his head. "For us boys always called him Spillbeans."

"Humph! What a beautiful cognomen!" ejaculated Carley, "But according to Shakespeare any name will serve. I'll ride him or--or--"

So far there had not really been any necessity for the completion of that sentence. But five miles of riding up into the cedar forest had convinced

The Call of the Canyon

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare:

So should I have co-partners in my pain: And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage, As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.

'Where now I have no one to blush with me, To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine, To mask their brows, and hide their infamy; But I alone alone must sit and pine, Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine, Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans, Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.

'O night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,

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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn:

children must suffer in the course of their training for the more or less factitious life of society:--obligations to remain very still with every nimble nerve quivering in dumb revolt;--the injustice of being found troublesome and being sent to bed early for the comfort of her elders;--the cruel necessity of straining her pretty eyes, for many long hours at a time, over grimy desks in gloomy school-rooms, though birds might twitter and bright winds flutter in the trees without;--the austere constrains and heavy drowsiness of warm churches, filled with the droning echoes of a voice preaching incomprehensible things;--the progressively augmenting weariness of lessons in deportment, in