Today's Stichomancy for Stephen Hawking

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley:

time, but before.

For just before he came to the river side, she had stept down into the cool clear water; and her shawl and her petticoat floated off her, and the green water-weeds floated round her sides, and the white water-lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream came up from the bottom and bore her away and down upon their arms; for she was the Queen of them all; and perhaps of more besides.

"Where have you been?" they asked her.

"I have been smoothing sick folks' pillows, and whispering sweet dreams into their ears; opening cottage casements, to let out the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton:

there trailed a thread of vapour over North Dormer, it drifted to the Mountain as a ship drifts to a whirlpool, and was caught among the rocks, torn up and multiplied, to sweep back over the village in rain and darkness.

Charity was not very clear about the Mountain; but she knew it was a bad place, and a shame to have come from, and that, whatever befell her in North Dormer, she ought, as Miss Hatchard had once reminded her, to remember that she had been brought down from there, and hold her tongue and be thankful. She looked up at the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland:

the maiden, and hovering wing to wing above the river, made a bridge across which her dainty feet might carry her in safety. But when the time for separation came, the two wept bitterly, and their tears falling in copious showers are the cause of the heavy rains which fall at that season of the year. From time immemorial it has been known that the Yellow River is neither more nor less than a prolongation of the Milky Way, soiled by earthly contact and contamination, and that the homes of the Spinning Maiden and the Cow-herd

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 Tanach:

Joshua 13: 7 Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.'

Joshua 13: 8 With him the Reubenites and the Gadites received their inheritance, which Moses gave them, beyond the Jordan eastward, even as Moses the servant of the LORD gave them;

Joshua 13: 9 from Aroer, that is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the valley, and all the table-land from Medeba unto Dibon;

Joshua 13: 10 and all the cities of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, unto the border of the children of Ammon;

Joshua 13: 11 and Gilead, and the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites, and all mount Hermon, and all Bashan unto Salcah;

Joshua 13: 12 all the kingdom of Og in Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edrei--the same was left of the remnant of the Rephaim-- for these did Moses smite, and drove them out.

Joshua 13: 13 Nevertheless the children of Israel drove not out the Geshurites, nor the Maacathites; but Geshur and Maacath dwelt in the midst of Israel unto this day.

Joshua 13: 14 Only unto the tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance; the offerings of the LORD, the God of Israel, made by fire are his inheritance, as He spoke unto him.

Joshua 13: 15 And Moses gave unto the tribe of the children of Reuben according to their families.

Joshua 13: 16 And their border was from Aroer, that is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, and the city that is in the middle of the valley, and all the table-land by Medeba;

Joshua 13: 17 Heshbon, and all her cities that are in the table-land; Dibon, and Bamoth-baal, and Beth-baal-meon;

The Tanach