Today's Stichomancy for Douglas Adams

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant:

on which the earth of the banlieue fattens, they scented the perfume of the flowering broom, which the salt breeze of the open sea plucks and bears away. And the sails of the boats from the river banks seemed like the white wings of the coasting vessels seen beyond the great plain which extended from their homes to the very margin of the sea.

They walked with short steps, Luc le Ganidec and Jean Kerderen, content and sad, haunted by a sweet melancholy, by the lingering, ever-present sorrow of a caged animal who remembers his liberty.

By the time that Luc had stripped the slender wand of its bark they reached the corner of the wood where every Sunday they took

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare:

him.

KING. The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafeu, To bring forth this discovery.--Seek these suitors:-- Go speedily, and bring again the count.

[Exeunt Gentleman, and some Attendants.]

I am afeard the life of Helen, lady, Was foully snatch'd.

COUNTESS. Now, justice on the doers!

[Enter BERTRAM, guarded.]

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke:

tall silk hat of the vintage of 1860, sat on the veranda of his trim presbytery, looking down upon us, like an image of propriety smiling at Bohemianism. Other craft appeared on the river. A man and his wife paddling an old dugout, with half a dozen children packed in amidships a crew of lumbermen, in a sharp-nosed bateau, picking up stray logs along the banks; a couple of boatloads of young people returning merrily from a holiday visit; a party of berry-pickers in a flat-bottomed skiff; all the life of the country-side was in evidence on the river. We felt quite as if we had been "in the swim" of society, when at length we reached the point where the Riviere des Aunes came tumbling down a hundred-foot

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 Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest:

Has really all the honor that he needs.

We can be famous for our works of kindness -- Fame is not born alone of strength or skill; It sometimes comes from deafness and from blindness To petty words and faults, and loving still.

We can be rich in gentle smiles and sunny: A jeweled soul exceeds a royal crown. The richest men sometimes have little money, And Croesus oft's the poorest man in town.

THE EPICURE

A Heap O' Livin'