Today's Stichomancy for Bill Gates

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll:

But the Bellman declared that would never agree With the plans he had made for the trip:

Navigation was always a difficult art, Though with only one ship and one bell: And he feared he must really decline, for his part, Undertaking another as well.

The Beaver's best course was, no doubt, to procure A second-hand dagger-proof coat-- So the Baker advised it-- and next, to insure Its life in some Office of note:

This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire

The Hunting of the Snark

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde:

born of the spirit - of those, that is to say, who like himself are dynamic forces - Christ says that they are like the wind that 'bloweth where it listeth, and no man can tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.' That is why he is so fascinating to artists. He has all the colour elements of life: mystery, strangeness, pathos, suggestion, ecstasy, love. He appeals to the temper of wonder, and creates that mood in which alone he can be understood.

And to me it is a joy to remember that if he is 'of imagination all compact,' the world itself is of the same substance. I said in DORIAN GRAY that the great sins of the world take place in the brain: but it is in the brain that everything takes place. We

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac:

that my husband drags me about by the hair of my head. Say that I am a prisoner; that--"

Her heart swelled, sobs choked her throat, tears fell from her eyes. In her agitation she allowed the young man, who was muttering broken words, to kiss her hands.

"Poor darling! no one can speak to the king. Though my uncle is grand- master of his archers, I could not gain admission to Plessis. My dear lady! my beautiful sovereign! oh, how she has suffered! Marie, let yourself say but two words, or we are lost!"

"What will become of us?" she murmured. Then, seeing on the dark wall a picture of the Virgin, on which the light from the lamp was falling,

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 Anabasis by Xenophon:

Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.

The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and

Anabasis