Today's Stichomancy for Kurt Goedel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic:

seemed somehow to connect themselves with the subject. Plowden himself was delicately-tinted and refined of texture. Vindictiveness was too plain and coarse an emotion to sway such a complicated and polished organism. He reasoned it out, as he stood with lack-lustre gaze before the plate-glass front, aloof among a throng of eager and talkative women who pressed around him--that Plowden would not have spent his money on a mere impulse of mischief-making. He would be counting upon something more tangible than revenge--something that could be counted and weighed and converted into a bank-balance. He smiled

The Market-Place

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas:

the gate of the Bastile. Two sentinels were on duty at the gate; they made no difficulty about admitting Aramis, who entered without dismounting, and they pointed out the way he was to go by a long passage with buildings on both sides. This passage led to the drawbridge, or, in other words, to the real entrance. The drawbridge was down, and the duty of the day was about being entered upon. The sentinel at the outer guardhouse stopped Aramis's further progress, asking him, in a rough tone of voice, what had brought him there. Aramis explained, with his usual politeness, that a wish to speak to M. Baisemeaux de Montlezun had occasioned his

Ten Years Later

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:

the dwellingplaces that are not their's.

HAB 1:7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

HAB 1:8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.

HAB 1:9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

HAB 1:10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall

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 The Symposium by Xenophon:

had set his heart on carrying off the palm of victory in the pankration, he took you into his counsel;[10] and will again take counsel to discover the fittest friend to aid him in his high endeavour,[11] and with this friend associate.

[10] It looks as if something had been lost intimating that Autolycus would have need of some one to instruct him in spiritual things. For attempts to fill up the lacuna see Schenkl.

[11] Or, "these high pursuits."

Thereupon several of the company exclaimed at once. "Where will he find a teacher to instruct him in that wisdom?" one inquired. "Why, it is not to be taught!" exclaimed another; to which a third rejoined:

The Symposium