Today's Stichomancy for Nellie McKay

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy:

purlieu, sat among the rest. Having travelled a great deal in her time she spoke with cosmopolitan largeness of idea. It was she who presently asked Jopp what was the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm.

"Ah, therein lies a grand secret," said Jopp. "It is the passion of love. To think that a woman should love one man so well, and hate another so unmercifully."

"Who's the object of your meditation, sir?"

"One that stands high in this town. I'd like to shame her! Upon my life, 'twould be as good as a play to read her love- letters, the proud piece of silk and wax-work! For 'tis her

The Mayor of Casterbridge

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne:

the business was entirely his; and he found it an inheritance of sorrows. He tried to sell it, and the offers he received were quite derisory. He tried to extend it, and it was only the liabilities he succeeded in extending; to restrict it, and it was only the profits he managed to restrict. Nobody had ever made money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff and built a castle with his profits. The memory of this fallacious Caledonian Morris would revile daily, as he sat in the private office opening his mail, with old Joseph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, or savagely affixing signatures to he knew not

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White:

starlight. Somehow it reminded me of a little trail I used to know under a big rock back in Texas. "Here's a trail," I thought, more than half loco; "I'll follow it!" At least that's what half of me thought. The other half was sensible, and knew better, but it seemed to be kind of standing to one side, a little scornful, watching the performance. So I slid and slipped down to the strip of white earth, and, sure enough, it was a trail. At that the loco half of me gave the

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 Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis:

afternoon."

But Jake was that careful and stingy he'd try to skin a hoss twicet if it died. He's bound to get that job done, now.

"Danny," he says, "you gotto do that work. It ain't HONEST not to. What a young feller like you jest starting out into life wants to remember is to always be honest. Then," says Jake, squinch- ing up his eyes, "people trusts you and you get a good chancet to make money. Look at this here hotel and livery stable, Danny. Twenty years