Today's Stichomancy for Pamela Colman Smith

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain:

any longer. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old gravestones have been removed from the graves and placed against the inner walls of the cemetery. What artists they had in the old times! They chiseled angels and cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tombstones in the most lavish and generous way--as to supply--but curiously grotesque and outlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell which of the figures belong among the blest and which of them among the opposite party. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of those old stones, which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw:

little about them: how could I? with a whole province on my hands. They and I are--acquaintances. Not perhaps, quite ordinary acquaintances: theres a sort of--er--I should almost call it a sort of remorse about the way we shake hands (when we do shake hands) which means, I suppose, that we're sorry we dont care more for one another; and I'm afraid we dont meet oftener than we can help. We put each other too much out of countenance. It's really a very difficult relation. To my mind not altogether a natural one.

TARLETON. _[impressed, as usual]_ Thats an idea, certainly. I dont think anybody has ever written about that.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Bentley is the only one who was really my son in any

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf:

were absolutely rigid, the contents of the day having to accommodate themselves within the four rigid bars. Looking back at her life, that was what she saw.

"Breakfast nine; luncheon one; tea five; dinner eight," she said.

"Well," said Hewet, "what d'you do in the morning?"

"I need to play the piano for hours and hours."

"And after luncheon?"

"Then I went shopping with one of my aunts. Or we went to see some one, or we took a message; or we did something that had to be done-- the taps might be leaking. They visit the poor a good deal-- old char-women with bad legs, women who want tickets for hospitals.

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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac:

represented a village wedding rather laboriously copied from Greuze's picture. It was rejected. When Fougeres heard of the fatal decision, he did not fall into one of those fits of epileptic self-love to which strong natures give themselves up, and which sometimes end in challenges sent to the director or the secretary of the Museum, or even by threats of assassination. Fougeres quietly fetched his canvas, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and brought it home, vowing in his heart that he would still make himself a great painter. He placed his picture on the easel, and went to one of his former masters, a man of immense talent,--to Schinner, a kind and patient artist, whose triumph at that year's Salon was complete. Fougeres asked him to come and