Today's Stichomancy for Brittany Murphy

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey:

cabin whistling. Hare watched the rustlers sit down to breakfast, and here and there caught a loud-spoken word, and marked their leisurely care-free manner. Snap Naab took up a pan of food and a cup of coffee, carried them into the cabin, and came out, shutting the door.

After breakfast most of the rustlers set themselves to their various tasks. Hare watched them with the eyes of a lynx watching deer. Several men were arranging articles for packing, and their actions were slow to the point of laziness; others trooped down toward the corral. Holderness rolled a cigarette and stooped over the campfire to reach a burning stick. Snap Naab stalked to and fro before the door of the cabin. He alone of the rustler's band showed restlessness, and more than once he

The Heritage of the Desert

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw:

sent to alarm the neighbors and call in the village police. Detachments were sent in various directions under the command of Fairholme and other energetic spirits. The girls formed parties among themselves, which were reinforced by male deserters from the previous levies. Miss Wilson then went indoors and conducted a search through the interior of the college. Only two persons were left on the tennis ground--Agatha and Mrs. Jansenius, who had been surprisingly calm throughout.

"You need not be anxious," said Agatha, who had been standing aloof since her rebuff by Miss Wilson. "I am sure there is no danger. It is most extraordinary that they have gone away; but

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber:

Miss Smalley's nut-cracker face that was peering up at her, its lips pursed grotesquely over the pins.

"Of course it is," mumbled Miss Smalley. "Everybody's clothes are too young for 'em nowadays. The only difference between the dresses we make for girls of sixteen and the dresses we make for their grandmothers of sixty is that the sixty-year-old ones want 'em shorter and lower, and they run more to rose-bud trimming."

Emma surveyed the acid Miss Smalley with a look that was half amused, half vexed, wholly determined.

"I shan't wear it. Heaven knows I'm not sixty, but I'm not sixteen either! I don't want to be."

Emma McChesney & Co.

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 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

v. 90. Isaias ] Chap. lxi. 10.

v. 94. Thy brother.] St. John in the Revelation, c. vii. 9.

v. 101. Winter's month.] "If a luminary, like that which now appeared, were to shine throughout the month following the winter solstice during which the constellation Cancer appears in the east at the setting of the sun, there would be no interruption to the light, but the whole month would be as a single day."

v. 112. This.] St. John, who reclined on the bosom of our Saviour, and to whose charge Jesus recommended his mother.

v. 121. So I.] He looked so earnestly, to descry whether St. John were present there in body, or in spirit only, having had

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)