Today's Stichomancy for Friedrich Nietzsche

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift:

prediction will be manifest to every body.

This is the farthest I have proceeded in my calculations for the present year. I do not pretend, that these are all the great events which will happen in this period, but that those I have set down will infallibly come to pass. It will perhaps still be objected, why I have not spoke more particularly of affairs at home, or of the success of our armies abroad, which I might, and could very largely have done; but those in power have wisely discouraged men from meddling in publick concerns, and I was resolv'd by no means to give the least offence. This I will venture to say, That it will be a glorious campaign for the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac:

the thought arose that this was a human creature to whom Nature had forbidden any expression of love or tenderness, since such expression could only be painful or ridiculous to the woman he loved. In the presence of such misfortune a Frenchman is silent; to him it seems the most cruel of all afflictions--to be unable to please!

The man so ill-favored was dressed after the fashion of shabby gentility, a fashion which the rich not seldom try to copy. He wore low shoes beneath gaiters of the pattern worn by the Imperial Guard, doubtless for the sake of economy, because they kept the socks clean. The rusty tinge of his black breeches, like the cut and the white or shiny line of the creases, assigned the date of the purchase some

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

Treasure Island

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 Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare:

The pillars of his hearse shall be his bones; The mould that covers him, their City ashes; His knell, the groaning cries of dying men; And, in the stead of tapers on his tomb, An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze, While we bewail our valiant son's decease.

[After a flourish, sounded within, enter an herald.]

HERALD. Rejoice, my Lord; ascend the imperial throne! The mighty and redoubted prince of Wales, Great servitor to bloody Mars in arms,