Today's Stichomancy for Billy Joel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll:

A number of cases, in which making laces Had been proved an infringement of right.

The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned A novel arrangement of bows: While the Billiard-marker with quivering hand Was chalking the tip of his nose.

But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine, With yellow kid gloves and a ruff-- Said he felt it exactly like going to dine, Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff."

"Introduce me, now there's a good fellow," he said,

The Hunting of the Snark

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells:

are often still in the making, and the automobile of the war tourist skirts precipices and takes hairpin bends upon tracks of loose metal not an inch too broad for the operation, or it floats for a moment over the dizzy edge while a train of mule transport blunders by. The unruly imagination of man's heart (which is "only evil continually") speculates upon what would be the consequences of one good bump from the wheel of a mule cart. Down below, the trees that one sees through a wisp of cloud look far too small and spiky and scattered to hold out much hope for a fallen man of letters. And at the high positions they are too used to the vertical life to understand the secret feelings of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber:

and kinder, and all that is truly worth while."

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I shrugged my shoulders. "Pooh! Any woman can have a husband and babies," I retorted, wickedly. "But mighty few women can write a book. It's a special curse."

"And you prefer this life--this existence, to the things that I offer you! You would endure these hardships rather than give up the nonsensical views which you entertain toward your--"

"Please. We were not to talk of that. I am enduring no hardships. Since I have lived in this pretty town I

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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner:

there is a further, and if possible more profound, truth underlying the statement that their destruction has ultimately been the result of the enervation of the entire race, male and female.

But when we come further to inquire how, exactly, this process of decay took place, we shall find that the part which the parasitism of the female has played has been fundamental. The mere use of any of the material products of labour, which we term wealth, can never in itself produce that decay, physical or mental, which precedes the downfall of great civilised nations. The eating of salmon at ten shillings a pound can in itself no more debilitate and corrupt the moral, intellectual, and physical constitution of the man consuming it, than it could enervate his naked