Today's Stichomancy for Faith Hill

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James:

in Mrs. Saltram's circle--at least among those who scorned to know her horrid husband--that she was attractive on her merits. She was in truth a most ordinary person, as Saltram himself would have been if he hadn't been a prodigy. The question of vulgarity had no application to him, but it was a measure his wife kept challenging you to apply. I hasten to add that the consequences of your doing so were no sufficient reason for his having left her to starve. "He doesn't seem to have much force of character," said my young lady; at which I laughed out so loud that my departing friends looked back at me over their shoulders as if I were making a joke of their discomfiture. My joke probably cost Saltram a

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare:

Or my true heart with trecherous reuolt, Turne to another, this shall slay them both: Therefore out of thy long experien'st time, Giue me some present counsell, or behold Twixt my extreames and me, this bloody knife Shall play the vmpeere, arbitrating that, Which the commission of thy yeares and art, Could to no issue of true honour bring: Be not so long to speak, I long to die, If what thou speak'st, speake not of remedy

Fri. Hold Daughter, I doe spie a kind of hope,

Romeo and Juliet

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

all came from above as though men were fighting upon the roofs of the palace.

"What is it?" they demanded, one of the other.

"A great storm has broken over Manator," said one.

"Mind not the storm until you have slain the creature who dares stand upon the throne of your jeddak," demanded O-Tar. "Seize him!"

Even as he ceased speaking the arras behind the throne parted and a warrior stepped forth upon the dais. An exclamation of surprise and dismay broke from the lips of the warriors of O-Tar. "U-Thor!" they cried. "What treason is this?"

The Chessmen of Mars

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 Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy:

voice. 'What if the weather gets worse! Do take him, for goodness' sake!'

'Why? Don't I know the road that I must needs take a guide?' exclaimed Vasili Andreevich, uttering every word very distinctly and compressing his lips unnaturally, as he usually did when speaking to buyers and sellers.

'Really you ought to take him. I beg you in God's name!' his wife repeated, wrapping her shawl more closely round her head.

'There, she sticks to it like a leech! . . . Where am I to take him?'

'I'm quite ready to go with you, Vasili Andreevich,' said

Master and Man