Today's Stichomancy for Billy Joel

The Alp upon its frigid border wears.

In front of them the Tigris and Euphrates Methought I saw forth issue from one fountain, And slowly part, like friends, from one another.

"O light, O glory of the human race! What stream is this which here unfolds itself From out one source, and from itself withdraws?"

For such a prayer, 'twas said unto me, "Pray Matilda that she tell thee;" and here answered, As one does who doth free himself from blame,

The beautiful lady: "This and other things

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Another boat knocked against the first; the steam cutter darted by. And then there came another boat with a fat Chinaman sitting in it, eating rice with little sticks.

Languidly the water heaved, languidly the white seagulls floated over it.

"I should like to give that fat fellow one in the neck," thought Gusev, gazing at the stout Chinaman, with a yawn.

He dozed off, and it seemed to him that all nature was dozing, too. Time flew swiftly by; imperceptibly the day passed, imperceptibly the darkness came on. . . . The steamer was no longer standing still, but moving on further.

while the snow is still on the ground, they what they call tap the tree; they drive a sort of little spout right into the tree and soon the sap begins to ooze out and drop into buckets that are placed to catch it. Afterwards they boil it down in huge kettles made for the purpose. They call it sugaring off, and it must be great fun."

"Not half so much fun, I should think, as sugaring down," laughed Mabel, with her right hand placed significantly where stomachs are supposed to be.

"And now I am going to run up to the house," explained Tattine, getting stiffly up from a rather cramped position, "for three or four plates, and Kudolph, you break off some pieces of ice the right size for them, and we will make a little plateful from what is left for each one up at the house, else I

belongs to a fellow-citizen who will henceforth stand before the nation as the symbol of the special virtue which has made our town famous throughout the land--Mr. Billson!"

The house had gotten itself all ready to burst into the proper tornado of applause; but instead of doing it, it seemed stricken with a paralysis; there was a deep hush for a moment or two, then a wave of whispered murmurs swept the place--of about this tenor: "BILLSON! oh, come, this is TOO thin! Twenty dollars to a stranger- -or ANYBODY--BILLSON! Tell it to the marines!" And now at this point the house caught its breath all of a sudden in a new access of astonishment, for it discovered that whereas in one part of the hall

The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg