Today's Stichomancy for Marilyn Monroe

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

a famous Mormon proselyter. That riled Frank Erne as nothin' ever before, an' from rivals they come to be bitter enemies. An' it ended in Frank goin' to the meetin'-house where Milly was listenin', en' before her en' everybody else he called that preacher--called him, well, almost as hard as Venters called Tull here sometime back. An' Frank followed up that call with a hosswhippin', en' he drove the proselyter out of town.

"People noticed, so 'twas said, that Milly's sweet disposition changed. Some said it was because she would soon become a mother, en' others said she was pinin' after the new religion. An' there was women who said right out that she was pinin' after the

Riders of the Purple Sage

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

"I know the fate of defectives, but I am no defective," insisted Ghek.

"You permitted the strange noises which issue from her throat to please and soothe you, knowing well that their origin and purpose had nothing whatever to do with logic or the powers of reason. This in itself constitutes an unimpeachable indictment of weakness, Then, influenced doubtless by an illogical feeling of sentiment, you permitted her to walk abroad in the fields to a place where she was able to make an almost successful attmept to escape. Your own reasoning power, were it not defective, would convince you that you are unfit. The natural, and reasonable,

The Chessmen of Mars

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine:

and such as could only have been made by those, whose understandings were darkened by the narrow and crabby spirit of a despairing political party; for ye are not to be considered as the whole body of the Quakers but only as a factional and fractional part thereof.

Here ends the examination of your testimony; (which I call upon no man to abhor, as ye have done, but only to read and judge of fairly;) to which I subjoin the following remark; "That the setting up and putting down of kings," most certainly mean, the making him a king, who is yet not so, and the making him no king who is already one. And pray what hath this to do in the present case? We neither mean to set up nor to pull down, neither to make nor to unmake, but to have nothing to do with them.

Common Sense

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 Economist by Xenophon:

{opotera . . . en ekatera} = "which kind of plant . . . in either soil . . ."; (3) Schenkl. etc., {openika . . . en ekatera} = "at what season . . . in each of the two sorts of soil . . ."

Soc. Certainly.[11]

[11] There is an obvious lacuna either before or after this remark, or at both places.

Isch. Supposing, then, you wish the plants to grow as fast as possible: how will the cutting strike and sprout, do you suppose, most readily?--after you have laid a layer of soil already worked beneath it, and it merely has to penetrate soft mould? or when it has to force its way through unbroken soil into the solid ground?