Today's Stichomancy for Alanis Morissette

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

He fables not; I hear the enemy: Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings. O, negligent and heedless discipline! How are we park'd and bounded in a pale, A little herd of England's timorous deer, Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs! If we be English deer, be then in blood; Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch, But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags, Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel And make the cowards stand aloof at bay:

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo:

fingers, and began to read: 'Hens set--' " He frowned.

"Oh, dem's jes' Miss Polly's 'don'ts,' " interrupted Mandy, disgustedly.

"Her 'don'ts'?"

"She done been set--sit--settin' up nights tryin' to learn what you done tole her," stuttered Mandy.

"Dear little Polly," he murmured, then closed the book and put it into his pocket.

Chapter IX

DOUGLAS was turning toward the house when the Widow Willoughby came through the wicker gate to the left of the parsonage,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy:

what he answered? "'Let him come here, if he wants me.' Isn't that just the same as Forna? "No, Lyovótchka is very proud. Nothing would induce him to go, and he was quite right; but it's no good talking of humility." During the last years of Sergéi Nikoláyevitch's life my father was particularly friendly and affectionate with him, and delighted in sharing his thoughts with him. A. A. Fet in his reminiscences describes the character of all the three Tolstoy brothers with extraordinary perspicacity:

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 Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw:

cannot keep children or even adults out of, and these teachers whom their pupils not only obey without coercion, but adore. And if you will tell me roughly how many Masons and Montessoris and Dalcrozes you think you can pick up in Europe for salaries of from thirty shillings to five pounds a week, I will estimate your chances of converting your millions of little scholastic hells into little scholastic heavens. If you are a distressed gentlewoman starting to make a living, you can still open a little school; and you can easily buy a secondhand brass plate inscribed PESTALOZZIAN INSTITUTE and nail it to your door, though you have no more idea of who Pestalozzi was and what he advocated or how he did it than the manager of a hotel which began as