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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

unclean dogs, how Christians suffer! Let none of us utter a single word." After this he ascended the scaffold.

"Well done, son! well done!" said Bulba, softly, and bent his grey head.

The executioner tore off his old rags; they fastened his hands and feet in stocks prepared expressly, and-- We will not pain the reader with a picture of the hellish tortures which would make his hair rise upright on his head. They were the outcome of that coarse, wild age, when men still led a life of warfare which hardened their souls until no sense of humanity was left in them. In vain did some, not many, in that age make a stand against such terrible measures. In vain did the

Taras Bulba and Other Tales

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest:

way; Time, I know, will stop you, soon enough some day.

OPPORTUNITY

So long as men shall be on earth There will be tasks for them to do, Some way for them to show their worth; Each day shall bring its problems new.

And men shall dream of mightier deeds Than ever have been done before: There always shall be human needs

A Heap O' Livin'

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde:

DUCHESS

This is no common murderer, Lord Justice, But a great outlaw, and a most vile traitor, Taken in open arms against the state. For he who slays the man who rules a state Slays the state also, widows every wife, And makes each child an orphan, and no less Is to be held a public enemy, Than if he came with mighty ordonnance, And all the spears of Venice at his back, To beat and batter at our city gates -

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 People That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

trying to make her understand that we would spend the night there.

As soon as she grasped my meaning, she assented with the Caspakian equivalent of an affirmative nod, and then touching my rifle, motioned me to follow her to the river. At the bank she paused, removed her belt and dagger, dropping them to the ground at her side; then unfastening the lower edge of her garment from the metal leg-band to which it was attached, slipped it off her left shoulder and let it drop to the ground around her feet. It was done so naturally, so simply and so quickly that it left me gasping like a fish out of water. Turning, she flashed a smile at me and then dived into the

The People That Time Forgot