Today's Stichomancy for Billy Joel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

THE CASE OF HE GOLDEN BULLET

by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner

"Please, sir, there is a man outside who asks to see you."

"What does he want?" asked Commissioner Horn, looking up.

"He says he has something to report, sir."

"Send him in, then."

The attendant disappeared, and the commissioner looked up at the clock. It was just striking eleven, but the fellow official who was to relieve him at that hour had not yet appeared. And if this should chance to be a new case, he would probably be obliged to take it himself. The commissioner was not in a very good humour

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare:

Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too, Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman? Such war of white and red within her cheeks! What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty As those two eyes become that heavenly face? Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee. Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.

HORTENSIO. 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.

KATHERINA. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,

The Taming of the Shrew

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London:

muscles ached, their bones ached, their very hearts ached; and because of this they became sharp of speech, and hard words were first on their lips in the morning and last at night.

Charles and Hal wrangled whenever Mercedes gave them a chance. It was the cherished belief of each that he did more than his share of the work, and neither forbore to speak this belief at every opportunity. Sometimes Mercedes sided with her husband, sometimes with her brother. The result was a beautiful and unending family quarrel. Starting from a dispute as to which should chop a few sticks for the fire (a dispute which concerned only Charles and Hal), presently would be lugged in the rest of the family,

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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall:

of the diamagnetic through which the ray passes. He operated with liquids and solutions. Of aqueous solutions he tried 150 and more, and found the power in all of them. He then examined gases; but here all his efforts to produce any sensible action upon the polarized beam were ineffectual. He then passed from magnets to currents, enclosing bars of heavy glass, and tubes containing liquids and aqueous solutions within an electro-magnetic helix. A current sent through the helix caused the plane of polarization to rotate, and always in the direction of the current. The rotation was reversed when the current was reversed. In the case of magnets, he observed a gradual, though quick, ascent of the transmitted beam