Today's Stichomancy for Nicholas Copernicus

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:

"I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before me. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous."

"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you on it. But how are you going to begin?"

"By marrying Sibyl Vane."

"Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--"

"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful about marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Princess by Alfred Tennyson:

A gallant fight, a noble princess--why Not make her true-heroic--true-sublime? Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, Betwixt the mockers and the realists: And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, And yet to give the story as it rose, I moved as in a strange diagonal, And maybe neither pleased myself nor them.

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton:

Alone th' antagonist of Heaven, nor less Than Hell's dread Emperor, with pomp supreme, And god-like imitated state: him round A globe of fiery Seraphim enclosed With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms. Then of their session ended they bid cry With trumpet's regal sound the great result: Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy, By herald's voice explained; the hollow Abyss Heard far adn wide, and all the host of Hell

Paradise Lost

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 Paz by Honore de Balzac:

"I--I am going to the Circus in the Champs Elysees; it opens to-night, and I can't miss it."

"Why not?" said Clementine, questioning him by a look that was half- anger.

"Must I tell you why?" he said, coloring; "must I confide to you what I hide from Adam, who thinks my only love is Poland."

"Ah! a secret in our noble captain?"

"A disgraceful one--which you will perhaps understand, and pity."

"You, disgraced?"

"Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels all over France with the Bouthor family,--people who have the rival circus