Today's Stichomancy for Franz Kafka

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling:

(I'm always choice in my body-linen) a lame Frenchman pushes a paper of buttons at us. He hadn't long landed in the United States, and please would we buy. He sure-ly was a pitiful scrattel - his coat half torn off, his face cut, but his hands steady; so I knew it wasn't drink. He said his name was Peringuey, and he'd been knocked about in the crowd round the Stadt - Independence Hall. One thing leading to another we took him up to Toby's rooms, same as Red Jacket had taken me the year before. The compliments he paid to Toby's Madeira wine fairly conquered the old man, for he opened a second bottle and he told this Monsieur Peringuey all about our great stove dispute in the church. I

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville:

with them; for they shall find there no good. And then must they let carry their victual upon the ice with cars that have no wheels, that they clepe sleighs. And as long as their victuals last they may abide there, but no longer; for there shall they find no wight that will sell them any victual or anything. And when the spies see any Christian men come upon them, they run to the towns, and cry with a loud voice; KERRA, KERRA, KERRA. And then anon they arm them and assemble them together.

And ye shall understand that it freezeth more strongly in those countries than on this half. And therefore hath every man stews in his house, and in those stews they eat and do their occupations all

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

their new antagonists press them too closely. But I have faced heavier odds myself than were pitted against me that day, and I knew that Kantos Kan had battled his way from a hundred more dangerous traps than that in which he now was. So it was with no feelings of despair that I turned my attention to the business of the moment. Constantly my thoughts reverted to Dejah Thoris, and I longed for the moment when, the fighting done, I could fold her in my arms, and hear once more the words of love which had been denied me for

The Warlord of Mars

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 Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter:

umph! and the little pigs said, wee, wee!"

She sang successfully through three or four verses, only at every verse her head nodded a little lower, and her little twinkly eyes closed up.

"Those three little piggies grew peaky and lean, and lean they might very well be; "For somehow they couldn't say umph, umph, umph! and they wouldn't