Today's Stichomancy for Lizzie Borden

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw:

your pardon; but since weve both forgotten ourselves, youll please allow me to leave the house. _[He turns towards the inner door, having left his cap in the bedroom]._

HYPATIA. _[standing in his way]_ Are you ashamed of having said "Damn you" to me?

PERCIVAL. I had no right to say it. I'm very much ashamed of it. I have already begged your pardon.

HYPATIA. And youre not ashamed of having said "Really, Miss Tarleton."

PERCIVAL. Why should I?

HYPATIA. 0 man, man! mean, stupid, cowardly, selfish masculine male

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini:

have been nothing without the players. You are fortunate in your Scaramouche."

"In confidence - I present you to him."

"You - Scaramouche? You?" She turned to regard him fully. He smiled his close-lipped smile that made wrinkles like gashes in his cheeks. He nodded. "And I didn't recognize you!"

"I thank you for the tribute. You imagined, of course, that I was a scene-shifter. And now that you know all about me, what of Gavrillac? What of my godfather?"

He was well, she told him, and still profoundly indignant with Andre-Louis for his defection, whilst secretly concerned on his

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Laches by Plato:

health or disease is the more terrible to a man? Had not many a man better never get up from a sick bed? I should like to know whether you think that life is always better than death. May not death often be the better of the two?

LACHES: Yes certainly so in my opinion.

NICIAS: And do you think that the same things are terrible to those who had better die, and to those who had better live?

LACHES: Certainly not.

NICIAS: And do you suppose that the physician or any other artist knows this, or any one indeed, except he who is skilled in the grounds of fear and hope? And him I call the courageous.

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 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini:

to be distinguished. Embittered by the slights she had put upon him - slights which his sensitive, lover's fancy had magnified a hundredfold - Anthony Wilding's frame of mind was grown peculiar. Of his love she would have none; his kindness she seemingly despised. So be it; she should taste his cruelty. If she scorned his wooing and forbade him to pursue it, at least it was not hers to deny him the power to hurt; and in hurting her that would not be loved by him some measure of fierce and bitter consolation seemed to await him.

He realized, perhaps, not quite all this - and to the unworthiness of it all he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat with mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her