Today's Stichomancy for Bill Gates

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran:

and an ill journey shall it be.

They swear by God they did not speak it, but they did speak the word of misbelief; and they disbelieved after they had embraced Islam, and they designed what they could not attain; and they only disapproved it because God and His Apostle had enriched them of His grace. If they turn again 'tis better for them; but if they turn their backs, God will torment them with mighty woe in this world and in the next, nor shall they have upon the earth a patron or protector.

And of them are some who make a treaty with God, that 'If He bring us of His grace, we will give alms and we will surely be among the righteous.' But when He gave them of His grace they were niggardly

The Koran

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

little amphitheatre of manzanita. Never had a lunch tasted so delicious. What if the wine was warm and the stuffed olives oily? What if the pepper for the hard- boiled eggs had sifted all over the "devilish" ham sandwiches? What if the eggs themselves had not been sufficiently cooked, and the corkscrew forgotten? They COULD not be anything else but inordinately happy, sublimely gay. Nothing short of actual tragedy could have marred the joy of that day. But after they were done eating, and Blix had put away the forks

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield:

doctor spoke.

"Well, she's hooked a boy this time!" said Doctor Erb. Andreas staggered forward.

"Look out. Keep on your pins," said Doctor Erb, catching Dinzer's arm, and murmuring, as he felt it, "Flabby as butter."

A glow spread all over Andreas. He was exultant.

"Well, by God! Nobody can accuse ME of not knowing what suffering is," he said.

10. THE CHILD-WHO-WAS-TIRED.

She was just beginning to walk along a little white road with tall black trees on either side, a little road that led to nowhere, and where nobody

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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe:

heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was--but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasureable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant

The Fall of the House of Usher