Today's Stichomancy for Jack Kerouac

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare:

They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens; And therefore level not to hit their lives. KING RICHARD. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth. Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious. QUEEN ELIZABETH. And must she die for this? O, let her live, And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty, Slander myself as false to Edward's bed, Throw over her the veil of infamy; So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter, I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.

Richard III

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke:

"wouldn't" into two parts, "would" and "n't", in dialogue and quotations. This convention has been preserved. Accent marks in French and other foreign words have been dropped.]

FISHERMAN'S LUCK AND SOME OTHER UNCERTAIN THINGS

by Henry van Dyke

"Now I conclude that not only in Physicke, but likewise in sundry more certaine arts, fortune hath great share in them." M. DE MONTAIGNE: Divers Events.

DEDICATION TO MY LADY GRAYGOWN

Here is the basket; I bring it home to you. There are no great fish in it. But perhaps there may be one or two little ones which will

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey:

made Hare sick. The horses drank with loud gulps. Naub and his sons drank of it. The women filled a pail and portioned it out in basins and washed their faces and hands with evident pleasure. Dave Naab whistled as he wielded an axe vigorously on a cedar. It came home to Hare that the tension of the past night and morning had relaxed. Whether to attribute that fact to the distance from White Sage or to the arrival at the water-hole he could not determine. But the certainty was shown in August's cheerful talk to the horses as he slipped bags of grain over their noses, and in the subdued laughter of the women. Hare sent up an unspoken thanksgiving that these good Mormons had apparently escaped from the dangers incurred for his sake. He sat with his back to a cedar and

The Heritage of the Desert

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 Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant:

lamplight at night, the feverish story of massacre.

And do we despise those picked out to accomplish these butcheries of men? No, they are loaded with honors. They are clad in gold and in resplendent stuffs; they wear plumes on their heads and ornaments on their breasts; and they are given crosses, rewards, titles of every kind. They are proud, respected, loved by women, cheered by the crowd, solely because their mission is to shed human blood! They drag through the streets their instruments of death, and the passer-by, clad in black, looks on with envy. For to kill is the great law put by nature in the heart of existence! There is nothing more beautiful and honorable than killing!