Today's Stichomancy for Rebecca Gayheart

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott:

herself.

"Little Raphael," as her sisters called her, had a decided talent for drawing, and was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art. Her teachers complained that instead of doing her sums she covered her slate with animals, the blank pages of her atlas were used to copy maps on, and caricatures of the most ludicrous description came fluttering out of all her books at unlucky moments. She got through her lessons as well as she could, and managed to escape reprimands by being a model of deportment. She was a great favorite with her mates,

Little Women

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman:

I noticed that more and more of these savages had a story about a strange and terrible Woman Land in the high distance.

"Up yonder," "Over there," "Way up"--was all the direction they could offer, but their legends all agreed on the main point --that there was this strange country where no men lived--only women and girl children.

None of them had ever seen it. It was dangerous, deadly, they said, for any man to go there. But there were tales of long ago, when some brave investigator had seen it--a Big Country, Big Houses, Plenty People--All Women.

Had no one else gone? Yes--a good many--but they never

Herland

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson:

In the silence he has heard Talking bee and ladybird, And the butterfly has flown O'er him as he lay alone.

Not a word will he disclose, Not a word of all he knows. I must lay him on the shelf, And make up the tale myself.

VI Autumn Fires

In the other gardens

A Child's Garden of Verses

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 Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac:

it seemed to have been some one's intention to mark. It proved to be a volume of the illustrated edition of Monsieur Scribe's works. The engraving which presented itself on the open page to la Peyrade's eyes, was entitled "The Hatred of a Woman"; the principal personage of which is a young widow, desperately pursuing a poor young man who cannot help himself. There is hatred all round. Through her devilries she almost makes him lose his reputation, and does make him miss a rich marriage; but the end is that she gives him more than she took away from him, and makes a husband of the man who was thought her victim.

If chance had put this volume apart from the rest, and had left it