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 A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: whose mission it was to help persons in distress; darting thus from
thought to thought, seeking help in all. She deplored belonging to a
class opposed to the government. Formerly, she could easily have
borrowed the money on the steps of the throne. She thought of
appealing to her father, the Comte de Granville. But that great
magistrate had a horror of illegalities; his children knew how little
he sympathized with the trials of love; he was now a misanthrope and
held all affairs of the heart in horror. As for the Comtesse de
Granville, she was living a retired life on one of her estates in
Normandy, economizing and praying, ending her days between priests and
money-bags, cold as ever to her dying moment. Even supposing that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: dismal. From the front, Howland & Gould's grocery was
smug enough, but attached to the rear was a lean-to of storm
streaked pine lumber with a sanded tar roof--a staggering
doubtful shed behind which was a heap of ashes, splintered
packing-boxes, shreds of excelsior, crumpled straw-board,
broken olive-bottles, rotten fruit, and utterly disintegrated
vegetables: orange carrots turning black, and potatoes with
ulcers. The rear of the Bon Ton Store was grim with blistered
black-painted iron shutters, under them a pile of once glossy
red shirt-boxes, now a pulp from recent rain.
As seen from Main Street, Oleson & McGuire's Meat Market
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: vouchsafed till the 11th, and then in the old terms; and meanwhile,
on the 10th, Leary got into his gaiters - the sure sign, as was
both said and sung aboard his vessel, of some desperate or some
amusing service - and was set ashore at the Scanlons' house. Of
this he took possession at the head of an old woman and a mop, and
was seen from the Tamasese breastwork directing operations and
plainly preparing to install himself there in a military posture.
So much he meant to be understood; so much he meant to carry out,
and an armed party from the ADAMS was to have garrisoned on the
morrow the scene of the atrocity. But there is no doubt he managed
to convey more. No doubt he was a master in the art of loose
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: de Lanty maintained concerning their origin, their past lives, and
their relations with the four quarters of the globe would not, of
itself, have been for long a subject of wonderment in Paris. In no
other country, perhaps, is Vespasian's maxim more thoroughly
understood. Here gold pieces, even when stained with blood or mud,
betray nothing, and represent everything. Provided that good society
knows the amount of your fortune, you are classed among those figures
which equal yours, and no one asks to see your credentials, because
everybody knows how little they cost. In a city where social problems
are solved by algebraic equations, adventurers have many chances in
their favor. Even if this family were of gypsy extraction, it was so
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