Today's Stichomancy for Kurt Vonnegut

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower:

Fro ferst that sche wifhode tok, Hou many loves sche forsok And hou sche bar hire al aboute, Ther whiles that hire lord was oute, He mihte make a gret avant Amonges al the remenant 1480 That sche was on of al the beste. Wel myhte he sette his herte in reste, This king, whan he hir fond in hele; For as he couthe in wisdom dele, So couthe sche in wommanhiede:

Confessio Amantis

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

did not understand. It isn't only that every day changed one's general outlook, but also that a boy fluctuates between phases of quite adult understanding and phases of tawdrily magnificent puerility. Sometimes I myself was in those tumbrils that went along Cheapside to the Mansion House, a Sydney Cartonesque figure, a white defeated Mirabean; sometimes it was I who sat judging and condemning and ruling (sleeping in my clothes and feeding very simply) the soul and autocrat of the Provisional Government, which occupied, of all inconvenient places! the General Post Office at St. Martin's-le- Grand! . . .

I cannot trace the development of my ideas at Cambridge, but I

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer:

drove out through the gateway under the echoing gatehouse. {34} Pisistratus lashed the horses on and they flew forward nothing loth; presently they came to the corn lands of the open country, and in the course of time completed their journey, so well did their steeds take them. {35}

Now when the sun had set and darkness was over the land,

Book IV

THE VISIT TO KING MENELAUS, WHO TELLS HIS STORY--MEANWHILE THE SUITORS IN ITHACA PLOT AGAINST TELEMACHUS.

they reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon, where they drove straight to the abode of Menelaus {36} [and found him in his own

The Odyssey

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 Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen:

one another--without regard to age or rank. Master and mistress say thou to their servants the superior to the inferior. But servants and inferiors do not use the same term to their masters, or superiors--nor is it ever used when speaking to a stranger, or anyone with whom they are but slightly acquainted --they then say as in English--you.

"I beg your pardon," said the learned man; "it is an old habit with me. YOU are perfectly right, and I shall remember it; but now you must tell me all YOU saw!"

"Everything!" said the shadow. "For I saw everything, and I know everything!"

"How did it look in the furthest saloon?" asked the learned man. "Was it there as in the fresh woods? Was it there as in a holy

Fairy Tales