Today's Stichomancy for Bob Dylan

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

But I am much too blame: I humbly do beseech you of your pardon For too much louing you

Oth. I am bound to thee for euer

Iago. I see this hath a little dash'd your Spirits: Oth. Not a iot, not a iot

Iago. Trust me, I feare it has: I hope you will consider what is spoke Comes from your Loue. But I do see y'are moou'd: I am to pray you, not to straine my speech

Othello

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner:

vanished.

In the shade of the tent, formed of the canvas across two posts, lay three white men, whose work it was to watch the pots and guard the camp. They were all three Colonial Englishmen, and lay on the ground on their stomachs, passing the time by carrying on a desultory conversation, or taking a few whiffs, slowly, and with care, from their pipes, for tobacco was precious in the camp.

Under some bushes a few yards off lay a huge trooper, whose nationality was uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British Isles, and who had travelled round the world. He was currently reported to have done three years' labour for attempted rape in Australia, but nothing

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas:

for the other knife, it would serve a double purpose, and with it one could cut and thrust.

Dantes examined the various articles shown to him with the same attention that he had bestowed on the curiosities and strange tools exhibited in the shops at Marseilles as the works of the savages in the South Seas from whence they had been brought by the different trading vessels.

"As for the ink," said Faria, "I told you how I managed to obtain that -- and I only just make it from time to time, as I require it."

"One thing still puzzles me," observed Dantes, "and that is

The Count of Monte Cristo

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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass:

enlightened my young mind. In ceasing to instruct me, she must begin to justify herself _to_ herself; and, once consenting to take sides in such a debate, she was riveted to her position. One needs very little knowledge of moral philosophy, to see _where_ my mistress now landed. She finally became even more violent in her opposition to my learning to read, than was her husband himself. She was not satisfied with simply doing as _well_ as her husband had commanded her, but seemed resolved to better his instruction. Nothing appeared to make my poor mistress--after her turning toward the downward path--more angry, than seeing me, seated in some nook or corner, quietly reading a

My Bondage and My Freedom