Today's Stichomancy for Kurt Vonnegut

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac:

them in petticoats--show a lithograph of this "Interior" to the veriest bigot, and she will be bound to smile.

We thought only of amusing ourselves. The reason for our dissipation lay in the most serious facts of the politics of the time. Juste and I could not see any room for us in the two professions our parents wished us to take up. There are a hundred doctors, a hundred lawyers, for one that is wanted. The crowd is choking these two paths which are supposed to lead to fortune, but which are merely two arenas; men kill each other there, fighting, not indeed with swords or fire-arms, but with intrigue and calumny, with tremendous toil, campaigns in the sphere of the intellect as murderous as those in Italy were to the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris:

grew tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the schooner's forefoot. "Maybe they're going after hay or wheat."

The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs's wharf. She came in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the talk of the fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made up his mind that they were to make a landing there, when--"

"Stand by for stays," came the raucous bark of the Captain, who had taken on the heel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner came about. Then the "Bertha Millner" caught the wind again and lay over quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack brought the schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King James Bible:

swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

ECC 9:12 For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

ECC 9:13 This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me:

ECC 9:14 There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks

King James Bible

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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis:

Lois held the candle to light the Doctor out of the long passages.

"Yoh hev n't seen Barney out 't Mr. Howth's, Doctor? He's ther' now."

"No. When shall you have done waiting on this--man, Lois? God help you, child!"

Lois's quick instinct answered,--

"He's very kind. He's like a woman fur kindness to such as me. When I come to die, I'd like eyes such as his to look at, tender, pitiful."

"Women are fools alike," grumbled the Doctor. "Never mind.

Margret Howth: A Story of To-day