Today's Stichomancy for Fiona Apple

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

But what it is you know, you keep As dark as ingots in a chest.

"You laugh and answer, `We are young; O leave us now, and let us grow.' -- Not asking how much more of this Will Time endure or Fate bestow.

"Because a few complacent years Have made your peril of your pride, Think you that you are to go on Forever pampered and untried?

"What lost eclipse of history,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon:

then of the clergy. If they had not done so their fate would have been that of the German Emperors of the Middle Ages, who, excommunicated by the Pope, were reduced, like Henry IV. at Canossa, to make a pilgrimage and humbly to sue for the Pope's forgiveness.

This same law has continually been verified during the course of history. When at the end of the Roman Empire the military caste became preponderant, the emperors depended entirely upon their soldiers, who appointed and deposed them at will.

It was therefore a great advantage for France that she was so long governed by a monarch almost absolute, supposed to

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac:

lips and a sensual mouth; and when he smiled, displayed a set of white teeth which would have done credit to a shark.

A shawl-waistcoat, likewise of black cloth, was supplemented by a white under-waistcoat, and yet again beneath this gleamed the edge of a red knitted under-jacket, to put you in mind of Garat's five waistcoats. A huge white muslin stock with a conspicuous bow, invented by some exquisite to charm "the charming sex" in 1809, projected so far above the wearer's chin that the lower part of his face was lost, as it were, in a muslin abyss. A silk watch-guard, plaited to resemble the keepsakes made of hair, meandered down the shirt front and secured his watch from the improbable theft. The greenish coat, though older

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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass:

physical wretchedness.

CHAPTER XVI _Another Pressure of the Tyrant's Vice_

EXPERIENCE AT COVEY'S SUMMED UP--FIRST SIX MONTHS SEVERER THAN THE SECOND--PRELIMINARIES TO THE CHANCE--REASONS FOR NARRATING THE CIRCUMSTANCES--SCENE IN TREADING YARD--TAKEN ILL--UNUSUAL BRUTALITY OF COVEY--ESCAPE TO ST. MICHAEL'S--THE PURSUIT-- SUFFERING IN THE WOODS--DRIVEN BACK AGAIN TO COVEY'S--BEARING OF MASTER THOMAS--THE SLAVE IS NEVER SICK--NATURAL TO EXPECT SLAVES TO FEIGN SICKNESS--LAZINESS OF SLAVEHOLDERS.

The foregoing chapter, with all its horrid incidents and shocking

My Bondage and My Freedom