Today's Stichomancy for Mariah Carey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran:

reminder to the believers.

Follow what has been revealed to you from your Lord, and follow not beside Him patrons; little is it that ye mind.

Yet how many a town have we destroyed, and our violence came upon it by night, or while they slept at noon; and their cry, when our violence came upon them, was only to say, 'Verily, we were unjust!' But we will of a surety question those to whom the prophets were sent, and we will narrate to them with knowledge, for we were not absent. The balance on that day is true, and whosesoever scales are heavy, they are prosperous; but whosesoever scales are light, they it is who lose themselves, for that they did act unjustly by our signs.

The Koran

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad:

worse eternal punishment for evil seamen who die unrepentant upon the earthly sea than that their souls should be condemned to man the ghosts of disabled ships, drifting for ever across a ghostly and tempestuous ocean.

She must have looked ghostly enough, that broken-down steamer, rolling in that snowstorm - a dark apparition in a world of white snowflakes to the staring eyes of that whaler's crew. Evidently they didn't believe in ghosts, for on arrival into port her captain unromantically reported having sighted a disabled steamer in latitude somewhere about 50 degrees S. and a longitude still more uncertain. Other steamers came out to look for her, and ultimately

The Mirror of the Sea

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

fairy glass-ware in which wine sparkles and seems the mellower. From Austria it learned the ponderous diplomacy which, to use a popular saying, takes three steps backward to one forward; while its trade with India poured into it the grotesque designs of China and the marvels of Japan.

And yet, in spite of its patience in gathering such treasures, its tenacity in parting with no possession once gained, its endurance of all things, Flanders was considered nothing more than the general storehouse of Europe, until the day when the discovery of tobacco brought into one smoky outline the scattered features of its national physiognomy. Thenceforth, and notwithstanding the parcelling out of

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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

great advantage, they resumed the discussion. . . .

My uncle's views about Cambridge, however, were perfectly clear and definite. It was waste of time and money. It was all damned foolery. Did they make a man a better business man? Not a bit of it. He gave instances. It spoilt a man for business by giving him "false ideas." Some men said that at college a man formed useful friendships. What use were friendships to a business man? He might get to know lords, but, as my uncle pointed out, a lord's requirements in his line of faience were little greater than a common man's. If college introduced him to hotel proprietors there might be something in it. Perhaps it helped a man into Parliament,