Today's Stichomancy for Richard Burton

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

Mamas--

And which were Ladies.

There was no rule of old or young by which Bessie Bell could tell.

Nor was it as one could tell Sisters from Just-Ladies by a way of dress. For Sisters, like Sister Helen Vincula, wore a soft white around the face, and soft long black veils, and a small cross on the breast of the dress: so that even had any not known the difference one could easily have guessed.

But for Ladies and Mamas there were none of these differences.

But Bessie Bell looked and looked and wondered, but her eyes brought to her no way of knowing.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum:

Then the Tin Woodman cut a straight and strong limb from a tree with his gleaming axe and made a new leg and a new ear for the Sawhorse; and when they had been securely fastened in place Princess Ozma took the coronet from her own head and placed it upon that of the winner of the race. Said she:

"My friend, I reward you for your swiftness by proclaiming you Prince of Horses, whether of wood or of flesh; and hereafter all other horses--in the Land of Oz, at least--must be considered imitations, and you the real Champion of your race."

There was more applause at this, and then Ozma had the jewelled saddle replaced upon the Sawhorse and herself rode the victor back to the

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

fantastic massacre. It was the French Revolution of that cold tyranny, the vindictive overthrow of the pampered vegetable aristocrats. After he had assuaged his passion upon them, he turned for other prey; he kicked holes in two of our noblest marrows, flicked off the heads of half a row of artichokes, and shied the hoe with a splendid smash into the cucumber frame. Something of the awe of that moment returns to me as I write of it.

Well, my boy," he said, approaching with an expression of beneficent happiness, "I've done with gardening. Let's go for a walk like reasonable beings. I've had enough of this"--his face was convulsed for an instant with bitter resentment--" Pandering to cabbages."

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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson:

outer barbarians.

'May 17.

I spent the day at the little station where the cable was landed, which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and then a Turkish mosque. At any rate the big dome is very cool, and the little ones hold [our electric] batteries capitally. A handsome young Bashibazouk guards it, and a still handsomer mountaineer is the servant; so I draw them and the monastery and the hill, till I'm black in the face with heat and come on board to hear the Canea cable is still bad.

'May 23.