Today's Stichomancy for James Joyce

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson:

despatched Captain Kane of the CALLIOPE to Mulinuu. Brandeis met the messenger with voluble excuses and engagements for the future. He was told his explanations were satisfactory so far as they went, but that the admiral's message was to Tamasese, the DE FACTO king. Brandeis, not very well assured of his puppet's courage, attempted in vain to excuse him from appearing. No DE FACTO king, no message, he was told: produce your DE FACTO king. And Tamasese had at last to be produced. To him Kane delivered his errand: that the LIZARD was to remain for the protection of British subjects; that a signalman was to be stationed at the consulate; that, on any further firing from boats, the signalman was to notify

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln:

to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it-- all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-- seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather

Second Inaugural Address

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa:

his friend had fallen.

Lifting him to his feet, he said: "Now it is my turn to try the high jump!" Hardly was the last word spoken than Iktomi gave a leap high above the deer.

"The game is mine!" laughed he, patting the sullen Patkasa on the back. "My friend, watch the deer while I go to bring my children," said Iktomi, darting lightly through the tall grass.

Patkasa was always ready to believe the words of scheming people and to do the little favors any one asked of him. However, on this occasion, he did not answer "Yes, my friend." He realized that Iktomi's flattering tongue had made him foolish.

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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James:

is due to bad digestion--probably his liver is torpid. Eliza's delight in her church is a symptom of her hysterical constitution. Peter would be less troubled about his soul if he would take more exercise in the open air, etc. A more fully developed example of the same kind of reasoning is the fashion, quite common nowadays among certain writers, of criticizing the religious emotions by showing a connection between them and the sexual life. Conversion is a crisis of puberty and adolescence. The macerations of saints, and the devotion of missionaries, are only instances of the parental instinct of self-sacrifice gone astray. For the hysterical nun, starving for natural life,