Today's Stichomancy for Soren Kierkegaard

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

of his pony's hoofs, mark his corners, and write out his field notes with the complacency produced by an act of duty well performed. Sometimes -- and who could blame the surveyor? -- when the pony was "feeling his oats," he might step a little higher and farther, and in that case the beneficiary of the scrip might get a thousand or two more acres in his survey than the scrip called for. But look at the boundless leagues the state had to spare! However, no one ever had to complain of the pony under- stepping. Nearly every old survey in the state con- tained an excess of land.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy:

word. Winterborne's mind ran on his contemplated evening-party, his abstraction being such that he hardly was conscious of Marty's presence beside him. From the nature of their employment, in which he handled the spade and she merely held the tree, it followed that he got good exercise and she got none. But she was an heroic girl, and though her out-stretched hand was chill as a stone, and her cheeks blue, and her cold worse than ever, she would not complain while he was disposed to continue work. But when he paused she said, "Mr. Winterborne, can I run down the lane and back to warm my feet?"

"Why, yes, of course," he said, awakening anew to her existence.

The Woodlanders

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther:

dispenses, takes money, and pardons more than it has power to pardon. I will here refrain from saying more; we see more of it than is good; greed holds the reins, and just what should be forbidden is taught; and it is clearly seen that the spiritual estate is in all things more worldly than the worldly estate itself. Meanwhile Christendom must be ruined, and this Commandment perish.

If there were a bishop who would zealously provide for all these classes, supervise, make visitations and be faithful as he ought, truly, one city would be too much for him. For in the time of the Apostles, when Christendom was at its best estate, each city had

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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

[Enter another Messenger.]

MESSENGER. My gracious lords, to add to your laments, Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse, I must inform you of a dismal fight Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.

WINCHESTER. What! wherein Talbot overcame? is't so?

MESSENGER. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was o'erthrown: The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.