Today's Stichomancy for Yoshitaka Amano

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Dick, very sincerely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

P.S. - You see I have changed my hand. I was threatened apparently with scrivener's cramp, and at any rate had got to write so small, that the revisal of my MS. tried my eyes, hence my signature alone remains upon the old model; for it appears that if I changed that, I should be cut off from my 'vivers.'

R. L. S.

Letter: TO COSMO MONKHOUSE

LA SOLITUDE, HYERES-LES-PALMIERS, VAR, MARCH 16, 1884.

MY DEAR MONKHOUSE, - You see with what promptitude I plunge into

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo:

all the ways were equally new to us, we had nothing to do but to resign ourselves to the Providence of God, asked and obtained the permission of our superiors to attempt the road through Melinda. So of we who went by land, two took the way of Zeila, and my companion and I that of Melinda.

Those who were appointed for Zeila embarked in a vessel that was going to Caxume, where they were well received by the king, and accommodated with a ship to carry them to Zeila; they were there treated by the check with the same civility which they had met with at Caxume. But the king being informed of their arrival, ordered them to be conveyed to his court at Auxa, to which place they were

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling:

All except Bob Brygandyne and he was a yeoman good, He caught Slingawai round the waist and threw him on to the mud.

'I have taken plank and rope and nail, without the King his leave, After the custom of Portesmouth, but I will not suffer a thief. Nay, never lift up thy hand at me! There's no clean hands in the trade. Steal in measure,' quo' Brygandyne. 'There's measure in all things made!'

'Gramercy, yeoman!' said our King. 'Thy counsel liketh me.' And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three. Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down, And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of merry Suthampton town.

They drew the naughty shipwrights up, with the kettles in their hands,

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 Cratylus by Plato:

HERMOGENES: That is a very shabby etymology.

SOCRATES: Yes, my dear friend; but then you know that the original names have been long ago buried and disguised by people sticking on and stripping off letters for the sake of euphony, and twisting and bedizening them in all sorts of ways: and time too may have had a share in the change. Take, for example, the word katoptron; why is the letter rho inserted? This must surely be the addition of some one who cares nothing about the truth, but thinks only of putting the mouth into shape. And the additions are often such that at last no human being can possibly make out the original meaning of the word. Another example is the word sphigx, sphiggos, which ought properly to be phigx, phiggos, and there are other examples.