Today's Stichomancy for Nicholas Copernicus

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator:

Or do you think that Orestes, had he been in his senses and knew what was best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on such a crime?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?

ALCIBIADES: No.

SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the best and does not know what is best?

ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.

SOCRATES: And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?

ALCIBIADES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Let us take another case. Suppose that you were suddenly to get

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson:

And others otherwhere they laid; and all That afternoon a sound arose of hoof And chariot, many a maiden passing home Till happier times; but some were left of those Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, Walked at their will, and everything was changed.

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answered thee?

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith:

She had put off her dress; and she look'd to his eyes Like a young soul escaped from its earthly disguise; Her fair neck and innocent shoulders were bare, And over them rippled her soft golden hair; Her simple and slender white bodice unlaced Confined not one curve of her delicate waist. As the light that, from water reflected, forever, Trembles up through the tremulous reeds of a river, So the beam of her beauty went trembling in him, Through the thoughts it suffused with a sense soft and dim. Reproducing itself in the broken and bright

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 A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac:

"Well," says she, "have you found those letters of which you spoke yesterday? You said that you could not tell me all about /him/ without them?"

"Yes, I have them."

"It is your turn to speak; I am listening like a child when his mother begins the tale of /Le Grand Serpentin Vert/."

"I count the young man in question in that group of our acquaintances which we are wont to style our friends. He comes of a good family; he is a man of infinite parts and ill-luck, full of excellent dispositions and most charming conversation; young as he is, he is seen much, and while awaiting better things, he dwells in Bohemia.