Today's Stichomancy for Franz Kafka

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White:

of a whim. But such a glorious whim!

We descended the great box canon, and scaled its upper end, following near the voices of a cascade. Cliffs thousands of feet high hemmed us in. At the very top of them strange crags leaned out looking down on us in the abyss. From a projection a colossal sphinx gazed solemnly across at a dome as smooth and symmetrical as, but vastly larger than, St. Peter's at Rome.

The trail labored up to the brink of the cascade. At once we entered a long narrow aisle between regular

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]:

"Neithet do I," said Tattine; "I was only giving you a chance to get a little breath. You did not seem to have much left."

"No more we had," laughed Rudolph, who was still taking little swallows and drawing an occasional long breath, as people do when they have been exercising very vigorously. "But if everything is ready." he added, "let us start."

"Well, everything is ready," said Tattine quite complacently, as she led the way to the back piazza, where "everything" was lying in a row. There was the maple sugar itself, two pounds of it on a plate, two large kitchen spoons, a china cup, two sheets of brown wrapping-paper, two or three newspapers, a box of matches, a pail of clear spring water, a hammer, an ice-pick, and last, and most important of all, a granite-ware kettle.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac:

"Ah! true," said Madame de Rastignac; "I had forgotten that artist who cut out the pretty figures for your children the last time I had the pleasure of paying you a visit. I own I was far from thinking then that he would be one of our masters."

"And yet, ever since then," replied Madame de l'Estorade, "his election has been talked about; though it must be owned that until now no one thought seriously of it."

"I did," said Monsieur de l'Estorade, rather eagerly, seizing the occasion to put another star to his reputation for prophecy; "from the first political conversation that I had with him I said--and Monsieur de Ronquerolles is here to bear me out--that I was surprised at the

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 Turn of the Screw by Henry James:

But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead."

I turned this over. "But of what?"

"He never told me! But please, miss," said Mrs. Grose, "I must get to my work."

III

Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately than ever on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: so monstrous was I then ready to pronounce it that such a child