Today's Stichomancy for James Joyce

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter:

a large family, and they were very improvident and cheerful.

I do not remember the separate names of their children; they were generally called the "Flopsy Bunnies."

AS there was not always quite enough to eat,-- Benjamin used to borrow cabbages from Flopsy's brother, Peter Rabbit, who

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

With epithites and accents of the Scot, But somewhat better than the Scot could speak: 'And thus', quoth she, and answered then her self-- For who could speak like her but she her self-- Breathes from the wall an Angel's note from Heaven Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes. When she would talk of peace, me thinks, her tongue Commanded war to prison; when of war, It wakened Caesar from his Roman grave, To hear war beautified by her discourse. Wisdom is foolishness but in her tongue,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

separate them before opinion has had time to settle. Follow the course of opinion on the great subjects of human interest for a few generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a small arc of its movement, see where it tends, and then see who is in advance of it or even with it; the world calls him hard names, probably; but if you would find the OVA of the future, you must look into the folds of his cerebral convolutions.

[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at this suggestion, as if he did not see exactly where he was to come out, if he computed his arc too nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr-

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare:

Winner and Looser

Laer. None but his Enemies

King. Will you know them then

La. To his good Friends, thus wide Ile ope my Armes: And like the kinde Life-rend'ring Politician, Repast them with my blood

King. Why now you speake Like a good Childe, and a true Gentleman. That I am guiltlesse of your Fathers death, And am most sensible in greefe for it, It shall as leuell to your Iudgement pierce

Hamlet