Today's Stichomancy for Douglas Adams

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad:

only a heap of soaked strips of canvas cumbering the deck and weighting the craft. Dominic gave the order to throw the whole lot overboard.

I would have had the yard thrown overboard, too, he said, leading me aft again, "if it had not been for the trouble. Let no sign escape you," he continued, lowering his voice, "but I am going to tell you something terrible. Listen: I have observed that the roping stitches on that sail have been cut! You hear? Cut with a knife in many places. And yet it stood all that time. Not enough cut. That flap did it at last. What matters it? But look! there's treachery seated on this very deck. By the horns of the

The Mirror of the Sea

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

your owne world, and you might quickly make it right

Des. I do not thinke there is any such woman. Aemil. Yes, a dozen: and as many to'th' vantage, as would store the world they plaid for. But I do thinke it is their Husbands faults If Wiues do fall: (Say, that they slacke their duties, And powre our Treasures into forraigne laps; Or else breake out in peeuish Iealousies, Throwing restraint vpon vs: Or say they strike vs, Or scant our former hauing in despight) Why we haue galles: and though we haue some Grace,

Othello

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

And in the midst, like to a slender point Within the compass of the horizon, As twere a rising bubble in the sea, A Hasle wand amidst a wood of Pines, Or as a bear fast chained unto a stake, Stood famous Edward, still expecting when Those dogs of France would fasten on his flesh. Anon the death procuring knell begins: Off go the Cannons, that with trembling noise Did shake the very Mountain where they stood; Then sound the Trumpets' clangor in the air,

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 Purse by Honore de Balzac:

scars as an old sergeant of the Imperial Guard.

This room did duty as a museum of certain objects, such as are never seen but in this kind of amphibious household; nameless objects with the stamp at once of luxury and penury. Among other curiosities Hippolyte noticed a splendidly finished telescope, hanging over the small discolored glass that decorated the chimney. To harmonize with this strange collection of furniture, there was, between the chimney and the partition, a wretched sideboard of painted wood, pretending to be mahogany, of all woods the most impossible to imitate. But the slippery red quarries, the shabby little rugs in front of the chairs, and all