Today's Stichomancy for Philip K. Dick

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock:

a voice to complain that we are 'tyrants and usurpers to kill and cook them up in their assigned and native dwelling-place,' we should most convincingly admonish them, with point of arrow, that they have nothing to do with our laws but to obey them. Is it not written that the fat ribs of the herd shall be fed upon by the mighty in the land? And have not they withal my blessing? my orthodox, canonical, and archiepiscopal blessing? Do I not give thanks for them when they are well roasted and smoking under my nose? What title had William of Normandy to England, that Robin of Locksley has not to merry Sherwood? William fought for his claim. So does Robin. With whom, both? With any

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

possible, to have them properly served. He is a big, black, vain baby and a man rolled into one.

A colored gentleman who insisted on getting me pie when I wanted something else, demanded information about India. I gave him some facts about wages.

"Oh, hell!" said he, cheerfully, "that wouldn't keep me in cigars for a month."

Then he fawned on me for a ten-cent piece. Later he took it upon himself to pity the natives of India. "Heathens," he called them--this woolly one, whose race has been the butt of every comedy on the native stage since the beginning. And I turned and

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King James Bible:

was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

GEN 37:4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.

GEN 37:5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.

GEN 37:6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:

GEN 37:7 For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.

King James Bible

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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton:

bright hard gaze on his companion.

"That was the queer part of it. I've never spoken of it--but I DID get a clue."

"By Jove! That's interesting. What was it?"

McCarren formed his red lips into a whistle. "Why--that it wasn't a delusion."

He produced his effect--the other turned on him with a pallid stare.

"He murdered the man all right. I tumbled on the truth by the merest accident, when I'd pretty nearly chucked the whole job."

"He murdered him--murdered his cousin?"