Today's Stichomancy for Faith Hill

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

watering their flocks.

And he found beside them two women keeping back their flocks. Said he, 'What is your design?' They said, 'We cannot water our flocks until the herdsmen have finished; for our father is a very old man.' So he watered for them; then he turned back towards the shade and said, 'My Lord! verily, I stand in need of what Thou sendest down to me of good.'

And one of the two came to him walking modestly; said she, 'Verily, my father calls thee, to reward thee with hire for having watered our flocks for us.' And when he came to him and related to him the story, said he, 'Fear not, thou art safe from the unjust

The Koran

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare:

Co-supreme and stars of love; As chorus to their tragic scene.

THRENOS.

Beauty, truth, and rarity. Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest; And the turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:-- 'Twas not their infirmity,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's tresses." Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, "I cannot! Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere. For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway, Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in darkness." Thereupon the priest, her friend and father-confessor, Said, with a smile, "O daughter! thy God thus speaketh within thee! Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted;

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 Poems by Bronte Sisters:

And distant hills and valleys seem In frozen mist arrayed.

The Bluebell cannot charm me now, The heath has lost its bloom; The violets in the glen below, They yield no sweet perfume.

But, though I mourn the sweet Bluebell, 'Tis better far away; I know how fast my tears would swell To see it smile to-day.

For, oh! when chill the sunbeams fall