Today's Stichomancy for Al Capone

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

Towards the royal river with such speed It headlong rushed, that nothing held it back.

My frozen body near unto its outlet The robust Archian found, and into Arno Thrust it, and loosened from my breast the cross

I made of me, when agony o'ercame me; It rolled me on the banks and on the bottom, Then with its booty covered and begirt me."

"Ah, when thou hast returned unto the world, And rested thee from thy long journeying," After the second followed the third spirit,

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy:

school, a Russified Pole, and his wife--who had invited her and her husband to a party in their house that evening.

THE guests at the party had tea and cakes offered to them, and sat down after that to play whist at a number of card-tables.

The partners of Eugene Mihailovich's wife were the host himself, an officer, and an old and very stupid lady in a wig, a widow who owned a music-shop; she loved playing cards and played

The Forged Coupon

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot:

For by assigning to the Women the same two colours as were assigned to the Priests, the Revolutionists thereby ensured that, in certain positions, every Woman would appear like a Priest, and be treated with corresponding respect and deference -- a prospect that could not fail to attract the Female Sex in a mass.

But by some of my Readers the possibility of the identical appearance of Priests and Women, under the new Legislation, may not be recognized; if so, a word or two will make it obvious.

Imagine a woman duly decorated, according to the new Code; with the front half (i.e. the half containing eye and mouth) red, and with the hinder half green. Look at her from one side.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood, If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.

WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence. Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.

[Exeunt Suffolk and Warwick.]

KING. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just,