Today's Stichomancy for Rebecca Gayheart

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

them through courts and corridors, through armories and prisons. He delivered his usual peripatetic discourse, and they stopped and stared, and peeped and stooped, according to the official admonitions. Bessie Alden asked the old man in the crimson doublet a great many questions; she thought it a most fascinating place. Lord Lambeth was in high good humor; he was constantly laughing; he enjoyed what he would have called the lark. Willie Woodley kept looking at the ceilings and tapping the walls with the knuckle of a pearl-gray glove; and Mrs. Westgate, asking at frequent intervals to be allowed to sit down and wait till they came back, was as frequently informed that they would never come back.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

Men are always hasty, and only remember the last thing, And the hasty are easily forced from the road by obstructions. But a woman is skillful, and full of resources, and scorns not Bye-roads to traverse when needed, well-skill'd to accomplish her purpose. Tell me then all, and why you are stirr'd by such violent feelings More than I ever have seen, while the blood is boiling within you, And from your eyes the tears against your will fain would fall now."

Then the youth gave way to his sorrow, and burst into weeping, Weeping aloud on the breast of his mother, and softly replying "Truly, my father's words to-day have wounded me sadly, Never have I deserved at his hands such treatment,--no, never!

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis:

with the freshness and cold, then back again to tear round her for a noisy good-morning. The touch of the dog seemed to bring her closer to his master; she put him away; she dared not suffer even that treachery to her purpose: the very circumstances that had forced her to give him up made it weak cowardice to turn again. It was a simple story, yet one which she dared not tell to herself; for it was not altogether for her father's sake she had made the sacrifice. She knew, that, though she might be near to this man Holmes as his own soul, she was a clog on him,--stood in his way,--kept him back. So she had quietly stood aside, taken up her own solitary burden, and left him with his clear

Margret Howth: A Story of To-day

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 Twilight Land by Howard Pyle:

gold, and off he marched with it.

He had not gone far before he met two of the king's officers, and you may guess how they opened their eyes when they saw him travelling along the highway with a pot full of gold money.

"Where are you going with that money?" said they.

"I don't know," said Babo.

"How did you get it?" said they.

"I got it for a piece of advice," said Babo.

For a piece of advice! No, no--the king's officers knew butter from lard, and truth from t'other thing. It was just the same in that country as it is in our town--there was nothing in the world