Today's Stichomancy for Nick Cave

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf:

domesticities. They gave him something--William Bankes acknowledged that; it would have been pleasant if Cam had stuck a flower in his coat or clambered in eruption; but they had also, his old friends could not but feel, destroyed something. What would a stranger think now? What did this Lily Briscoe think? Could one help noticing that habits grew on him? eccentricities, weaknesses perhaps? It was astonishing that a man of his intellect could stoop so low as he did--but that was too harsh a phrase--could depend so much as he did upon people's praise.

"Oh, but," said Lily, "think of his work!"

Whenever she "thought of his work" she always saw clearly before her a large kitchen table. It was Andrew's doing. She asked him what his

To the Lighthouse

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates:

moment, then looked at me and smiled. I raised her hand to my lips.

"I cannot say anything, Madame."

"It is all said. We have spoken together for the last half-hour. Is it not so?"

"It is so, Madame."

After a little, my companion said we must be going.

"He will see me to my hotel," she said."

I do not like letting you go," said our hostess, "but I take long to dress. My car shall carry you home and return for me. Yvonne, see to that. Yes, there will be plenty of time.

The Brother of Daphne

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas:

perhaps, be always ungrateful. She treats her children ill, but she always welcomes strangers."

"Ah, father," said Albert with a smile, "it is evident you do not know the Count of Monte Cristo; he despises all honors, and contents himself with those written on his passport."

"That is the most just remark," replied the stranger, "I ever heard made concerning myself."

"You have been free to choose your career," observed the Count of Morcerf, with a sigh; "and you have chosen the path strewed with flowers."

The Count of Monte Cristo

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 Mountains by Stewart Edward White:

while the cold wind swept by us, the snow glittered in a sunlight become silvery like that of early April, and the giant peaks of the High Sierras lifted into a distance inconceivably remote, as though the horizon had been set back for their accommodation.

To our left lay a windrow of snow such as you will see drifted into a sharp crest across a corner of your yard; only this windrow was twenty feet high and packed solid by the sun, the wind, and the weight of its age. We climbed it and looked over directly into the eye of a round Alpine lake seven or eight