Today's Stichomancy for Meyer Lansky

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield:

that sweet scent of cigarette smoke. And then she remembered that she had heard nobody go down the stone stairs. Was it possible that the strange man was still there?...The thought was too absurd--Life didn't play tricks like that--and yet--she was quite conscious of his nearness. Very quietly she got up, unhooked from the back of the door a long white gown, buttoned it on--smiling slyly. She did not know what was going to happen. She only thought: "Oh, what fun!" and that they were playing a delicious game--this strange man and she. Very gently she turned the door-handle, screwing up her face and biting her lip as the lock snapped back. Of course, there he was--leaning against the banister rail. He wheeled round as she slipped into the passage.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy:

falling in the same way, except that it was no longer driving against the frame of the sledge but silently covered both sledge and horse deeper and deeper, and neither the horse's movements nor his breathing were any longer to be heard.

'He must have frozen too,' thought Nikita of Mukhorty, and indeed those hoof knocks against the sledge, which had awakened Nikita, were the last efforts the already numbed Mukhorty had made to keep on his feet before dying.

'O Lord God, it seems Thou art calling me too!' said Nikita. 'Thy Holy Will be done. But it's uncanny. . . . Still, a man can't die twice and must die once. If only it would come

Master and Man

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson:

Spied where he couched, and as the gardener's hand Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, So from the high wall and the flowering grove Of grasses Lancelot plucked him by the heel, And cast him as a worm upon the way; But when he knew the Prince though marred with dust, He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man, Made such excuses as he might, and these Full knightly without scorn; for in those days No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn; But, if a man were halt or hunched, in him

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 Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber:

dress, and the real hair and eye-lashes, while the Winnebago East End society woman haggled over the forty-nine cent kind, which she dressed herself.

I think their loyalty to Mrs. Brandeis might be explained by her honesty and her sympathy. She was so square with them. When Minnie Mahler, out Centerville way, got married, she knew there would be no redundancy of water sets, hanging lamps, or pickle dishes.

"I thought like I'd get her a chamber set," Minnie's aunt would confide to Mrs. Brandeis.

"Is this for Minnie Mahler, of Centerville?"

Fanny Herself