Today's Stichomancy for Philip K. Dick

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon:

kteinanta}.

[6] See Lys. "de caed Eratosth." S. 32 f., {outos, o andres, tous biazomenous elattonos zemias axious egesato einai e tous peithontas . ton men gar thanaton kategno, tois de diplen epoiese ten blaben, egoumenos tous men diaprattomenous bia upo ton biasthenton miseisthai, tous de peisantas outos aution tas psukhas diaphtheirein ost' oikeioteras autois poiein tas allotrias gunaikas e tois andrasi kai pasan ep' ekeinois ten oikian gegonenai kai tous paidas adelous einai opoteron tugkhanousin ontes, ton andron e ton moikhon . anth' on o ton nomon titheis thanaton autois epoiese ten zemian}. Cf. "Cyrop." III. i. 39;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis:

lecturing murderers, too. He was a big fellow. And they wouldn't let me help carry Zilla down to the ambulance."

"Paul! Quit it! Listen: she won't die, and when it's all over you and I'll go off to Maine again. And maybe we can get that May Arnold to go along. I'll go up to Chicago and ask her. Good woman, by golly. And afterwards I'll see that you get started in business out West somewhere, maybe Seattle--they say that's a lovely city."

Paul was half smiling. It was Babbitt who rambled now. He could not tell whether Paul was heeding, but he droned on till the coming of Paul's lawyer, P. J. Maxwell, a thin, busy, unfriendly man who nodded at Babbitt and hinted, "If Riesling and I could be alone for a moment--"

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson:

singular presumptions; comparing Polynesians with an ideal person, compact of generosity and gratitude, whom I never had the pleasure of encountering; and forgetting that what is almost poverty to us is wealth almost unthinkable to them. I will give one instance: I chanced to speak with consideration of these gifts of Stanislao's with a certain clever man, a great hater and contemner of Kanakas. 'Well! what were they?' he cried. 'A pack of old men's beards. Trash!' And the same gentleman, some half an hour later, being upon a different train of thought, dwelt at length on the esteem in which the Marquesans held that sort of property, how they preferred it to all others except land, and what fancy prices it would fetch.

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 Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac:

shop, where she saw Maximilien standing with his arms folded, in the attitude of a man superior to the disaster that has so suddenly fallen on him. Their eyes met and flashed implacable looks. Each hoped to inflict a cruel wound on the heart of a lover. In one instant they were as far apart as if one had been in China and the other in Greenland.

Does not the breath of vanity wither everything? Mademoiselle de Fontaine, a prey to the most violent struggle that can torture the heart of a young girl, reaped the richest harvest of anguish that prejudice and narrow-mindedness ever sowed in a human soul. Her face, but just now fresh and velvety, was streaked with yellow lines and red