Today's Stichomancy for Neal Stephenson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton:

doubt, the episode was only a pathetic instance of vain frustration, of wasted forces. But was it really no more? For a long time Archer sat on a bench in the Champs Elysees and wondered, while the stream of life rolled by. . . .

A few streets away, a few hours away, Ellen Olenska waited. She had never gone back to her husband, and when he had died, some years before, she had made no change in her way of living. There was nothing now to keep her and Archer apart--and that afternoon he was to see her.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

On Telamone's haven, there to fail Confounded, more shall when the fancied stream They sought of Dian call'd: but they who lead Their navies, more than ruin'd hopes shall mourn."

CANTO XIV

"Say who is he around our mountain winds, Or ever death has prun'd his wing for flight, That opes his eyes and covers them at will?" "I know not who he is, but know thus much He comes not singly. Do thou ask of him, For thou art nearer to him, and take heed

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad:

even on the swing-tables, when there was no position where you could fix yourself so as not to feel a constant strain upon all the muscles of your body. She rolled and rolled with an awful dislodging jerk and that dizzily fast sweep of her masts on every swing. It was a wonder that the men sent aloft were not flung off the yards, the yards not flung off the masts, the masts not flung overboard. The captain in his armchair, holding on grimly at the head of the table, with the soup-tureen rolling on one side of the cabin and the steward sprawling on the other, would observe, looking at me: "That's your one-third above the beams. The only thing that surprises me is that the sticks have stuck to her all

The Mirror of the Sea

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 Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare:

Of hard misfortune, carv'd in it with tears. 'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living, By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving.

Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break, She throws forth Tarquin's name: 'He, he,' she says, But more than 'he' her poor tongue could not speak; Till after many accents and delays, Untimely breathings, sick and short assays, She utters this: 'He, he, fair lords, 'tis he, That guides this hand to give this wound to me.'

Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast