Today's Stichomancy for Toni Braxton

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

Fellner's icy hand on his as the sick man murmured: "Tell me the truth! Is Asta dead?"

The detective shrugged his shoulders. "We do not know yet. She was alive and able to send a message at half past eight this evening."

"A message? To whom?"

"To the nearest police station." Muller told the story as it had come to him.

The old man listened with an expression of such utter dazed terror that the detective dropped all suspicion of him at once.

"What a terrible riddle," stammered the sick man as the other finished the story.

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

me, Billy. Her father is a wealthy man--he could have the pick of the land--of many lands--if she cared to marry. You don't think for a minute she'd want a hobo, do you?"

"You can't most always tell," replied Billy, a trifle sadly. "I knew such a queen once who would have chosen a mucker, if he'd a-let her. You're stuck on her, ol' man?"

"I'm afraid I am, Billy," Bridge admitted; "but what's the use? Let's forget it. Oh, say, is this the horse I let you take the night you robbed the bank?"

"Yes," said Billy; "same little pony, an' a mighty well-behaved one, too. Why?"

The Mucker

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

If good King Pericles be.

PERICLES. Ho, Helicanus!

HELICANUS. Calls my lord?

PERICLES. Thou art a grave and noble counsellor, Most wise in general: tell me, if thou canst, What this maid is, or what is like to be, That thus hath made me weep?

HELICANUS.

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 Blix by Frank Norris:

And all unknowingly they were a Romance in themselves. Cynicism, old age, and the weariness of all things done had no place in the world in which they walked. They still had their illusions, all the keenness of their sensations, all the vividness of their impressions. The simple things of the world, the great, broad, primal emotions of the race stirred in them. As they swung along, going toward the ocean, their brains were almost as empty of thought or of reflection as those of two fine, clean animals. They were all for the immediate sensation; they did not think-- they FELT. The intellect was dormant; they looked at things, they