Today's Stichomancy for David Bowie

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson:

The girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise. Her character is gone."

"And I ask your pardon," said I, "but while this matter lies between her and you and me, that is not so."

"What security have I!" he cried. "Am I to let my daughter's reputation depend upon a chance?"

"You should have thought of all this long ago," said I, "before you were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards when it is quite too late. I refuse to regard myself as any way accountable for your neglect, and I will be browbeat by no man living. My mind is quite made up, and come what may, I will not depart from it a hair's breadth.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain:

ghostly hush of the sleeping castle, until by and by there came, as if from deep down under us, a far-away sound, as of a muffled shriek -- with an expression of agony about it that made my flesh crawl. The queen stopped, and her eyes lighted with pleasure; she tilted her graceful head as a bird does when it listens. The sound bored its way up through the stillness again.

"What is it?" I said.

"It is truly a stubborn soul, and endureth long. It is many hours now."

"Endureth what?"

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne:

clanking pump rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling water gushed on deck and made valleys in the slab guano. Nares leaned on the rail, watching the steady stream of bilge as though he found some interest in it.

"What is it that bothers you?" I asked.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing shortly," he replied. "But here's another. Do you see those boats there, one on the house and two on the beds? Well, where is the boat Trent lowered when he lost the hands?"

"Got it aboard again, I suppose," said I.

"Well, if you'll tell me why!" returned the captain.

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 Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

SIMON. He, I suppose to whom He most forgave.

CHRISTUS. Yea, thou hast rightly judged. Seest thou this woman? When thine house I entered, Thou gavest me no water for my feet, But she hath washed them with her tears, and wiped them With her own hair. Thou gavest me no kiss; This woman hath not ceased, since I came in, To kiss my feet. My head with oil didst thou