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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

Despairing of his own arm's fortitude, To join with witches and the help of hell!

BURGUNDY. Traitors have never other company. But what 's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?

TALBOT. A maid, they say.

BEDFORD. A maid! and be so martial!

BURGUNDY. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne:

as though deprived of all strength.

"The poor bairn is too weak to speak to us," said Madge, when she had adjusted the pillows. "After a good rest, and a little more food, she will be stronger. Come away, Simon and Harry, and all the rest of you, and let her go to sleep." So Nell was left alone, and in a very few minutes slept profoundly.

This event caused a great sensation, not only in the coal

mines, but in Stirlingshire, and ultimately throughout the kingdom. The strangeness of the story was exaggerated; the affair could not have made more commotion had they found the girl enclosed in the solid rock, like one of those antediluvian creatures who have occasionally

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde:

Aux ambassadeurs de Cesar il faut faire tout honneur.

HERODIAS. Ce n'est pas e cause d'eux que vous restez.

HERODE. Oui, l'air est delicieux. Viens, Herodias, nos hotes nous attendent. Ah! j'ai glisse! j'ai glisse dans le sang! C'est d'un mauvais presage. C'est d'un tres mauvais presage. Pourquoi y a-t- il du sang ici? . . . Et ce cadavre? Que fait ici ce cadavre? Pensez-vous que je sois comme le roi d'Egypte qui ne donne jamais un festin sans montrer un cadavre e ses hotes? Enfin, qui est-ce? Je ne veux pas le regarder.

PREMIER SOLDAT. C'est notre capitaine, Seigneur. C'est le jeune Syrien que vous avez fait capitaine il y a trois jours seulement.

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 Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw:

and it will be seen that only in the problem play is there any real drama, because drama is no mere setting up of the camera to nature: it is the presentation in parable of the conflict between Man's will and his environment: in a word, of problem. The vapidness of such drama as the pseudo-operatic plays contain lies in the fact that in them animal passion, sentimentally diluted, is shewn in conflict, not with real circumstances, but with a set of conventions and assumptions half of which do not exist off the stage, whilst the other half can either be evaded by a pretence of compliance or defied with complete impunity by any reasonably strong-minded person. Nobody can feel that such conventions are