Today's Stichomancy for Jayne Mansfield

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil:

Of olive leaning, Damon thus began.

DAMON "Rise, Lucifer, and, heralding the light, Bring in the genial day, while I make moan Fooled by vain passion for a faithless bride, For Nysa, and with this my dying breath Call on the gods, though little it bestead- The gods who heard her vows and heeded not.

"Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays. Ever hath Maenalus his murmuring groves And whispering pines, and ever hears the songs

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin:

immense troops of mares, which were swimming the river in order to follow a division of troops into the interior. A more ludicrous spectacle I never beheld than the hundreds and hundreds of heads, all directed one way, with pointed ears and distended snorting nostrils, appearing just above the water like a great shoal of some amphibious animal. Mare's flesh is the only food which the soldiers have when on an expedition. This gives them a great facility of movement; for the distance to which horses can be driven over these plains is quite surprising: I have been assured that an unloaded horse can travel a hundred miles a day for many

The Voyage of the Beagle

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker:

"Adam, I greatly fear that the time has come for us--for you and me, at all events--to speak out plainly to one another. Does not there seem something very mysterious about this?"

"I have thought so, sir, all along. The only difficulty one has is what one is to think and where to begin."

"Let us begin with what you have told me. First take the conduct of the mongoose. He was quiet, even friendly and affectionate with you. He only attacked the snakes, which is, after all, his business in life."

"That is so!"

"Then we must try to find some reason why he attacked Lady

Lair of the White Worm

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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

". . . Or that souls are any whiter when their bodies are called wives. If a dollar's worth of gold will hoop the walls of hell together, Why need heaven be such a ruin of a place that never was? And if at last I lied my starving soul away to nothing, Are you sure you might not miss it? Have you come to such a pass That you would have me longer in your arms if you discovered That I made you into someone else. . . . Oh! . . . Well, there are worse ways. But why aim it at my feet -- unless you fear you may be sorry. . . . There are many days ahead of you."

"I do not see those days."