Today's Stichomancy for Joan of Arc

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson:

cannot see, but so I have always heard it. This was the clan immediately beyond the Tevas on the south coast of the island. At the date of the tale the clan organisation must have been very weak. There is no particular mention of Tamatea's mother going to Papara, to the head chief of her own clan, which would appear her natural recourse. On the other hand, she seems to have visited various lesser chiefs among the Tevas, and these to have excused themselves solely on the danger of the enterprise. The broad distinction here drawn between Nateva and Namunu-ura is therefore not impossibly anachronistic.

Ballads

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler:

think?--I am--

MANLY

What?

MARIA

Engaged, Sir; and, in a few days, to be married to the gentleman you saw at your sister's.

MANLY

Engaged to be married! And have I been basely invading the rights of another? Why have you per- mitted this? Is this the return for the partiality I declared for you?

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain:

go 'long and play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you."

She was so overcome by the splendor of his achieve- ment that she took him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" a doughnut.

Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway that led to the back rooms on

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

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 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain:

face and the child's with kisses, and washed them with the rain of his tears. I suspected. I inquired. Yes, I was right; it was husband and wife. They had to be torn apart by force; the girl had to be dragged away, and she struggled and fought and shrieked like one gone mad till a turn of the road hid her from sight; and even after that, we could still make out the fading plaint of those receding shrieks. And the hus- band and father, with his wife and child gone, never to be seen by him again in life? -- well, the look of him one might not bear at all, and so I turned away; but I

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court