Today's Stichomancy for Moby

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

the other prisoners be taken to the county jail.

Jonas Prim and his wife awaited Abigail's return in the spacious living room at the left of the reception hall. The banker was nervous. He paced to and fro the length of the room. Mrs. Prim fanned herself vigorously although the heat was far from excessive. They heard the motor draw up in front of the house; but they did not venture into the reception hall or out upon the porch, though for different reasons. Mrs. Prim because it would not have been PROPER; Jonas because he could not trust himself to meet his daughter, whom he had

The Oakdale Affair

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

Till you married that thin-flanked woman, as white and as stale as a bone, An' she gave you your social nonsense; but where's that kid o' your own? I've seen your carriages blocking the half o' the Cromwell Road, But never the doctor's brougham to help the missus unload. (So there isn't even a grandchild, an' the Gloster family's done.) Not like your mother, she isn't. ~She~ carried her freight each run. But they died, the pore little beggars! At sea she had 'em -- they died. Only you, an' you stood it; you haven't stood much beside. Weak, a liar, and idle, and mean as a collier's whelp Nosing for scraps in the galley. No help -- my son was no help! So he gets three 'undred thousand, in trust and the interest paid.

Verses 1889-1896

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad:

"How did you feel about it?" I asked.

He waved his hand as much as to say: It's all in the day's work. But then, abruptly, as if making up his mind:

"I'll tell you. Towards the last I used to shut myself up in my berth and cry."

"Cry?"

"Shed tears," he explained briefly, and rolled up the chart.

I can answer for it, he was a good man - as good as ever stepped upon a ship's deck - but he could not bear the feeling of a dead ship under his feet: the sickly, disheartening feeling which the men of some "overdue" ships that come into harbour at last under a

The Mirror of the Sea

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 Before Adam by Jack London:

Swift One. I ventured the ground again, doubled back, and crossed a wide open space, with the whole band grunting, bristling, and tusk-gnashing at my heels.

If I had tripped or stumbled in that open space, there would have been no chance for me. But I didn't. And I didn't care whether I did or not. I was in such mood that I would have faced old Saber-Tooth himself, or a score of arrow-shooting Fire People. Such was the madness of love...with me. With the Swift One it was different. She was very wise. She did not take any real risks, and I remember, on looking back across the