Today's Stichomancy for Umberto Eco

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, Feeds among the reeds and rushes. I repeat them as I heard them From the lips of Nawadaha, The musician, the sweet singer." Should you ask where Nawadaha Found these songs so wild and wayward, Found these legends and traditions, I should answer, I should tell you, "In the bird's-nests of the forest, In the lodges of the beaver,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell:

were by far the most active in the debates. But it was noticed that these two were never in agreement: whatever suggestion either of them made, the other could be counted on to oppose it. Even when it was resolved--a thing no one could object to in itself--to set aside the small paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for animals who were past work, there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age for each class of animal. The Meeting always ended with the singing of 'Beasts of England', and the afternoon was given up to recreation.

The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a headquarters for themselves. Here, in the evenings, they studied blacksmithing, carpentering, and other necessary arts from books which they had brought out of the farmhouse.

Animal Farm

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale:

"I Love You"

When April bends above me And finds me fast asleep, Dust need not keep the secret A live heart died to keep.

When April tells the thrushes, The meadow-larks will know, And pipe the three words lightly To all the winds that blow.

Above his roof the swallows, In notes like far-blown rain,

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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving:

banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he 'd turn his back upon the old schoolhouse; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow