Today's Stichomancy for Moby

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost:

vain, entreated her to desist from exertion: it would have only added to her distress if I had refused her the satisfaction of seeing me at ease and out of danger, before her own wants were attended to. I allowed her therefore to gratify herself, and in shame and silence submitted to her delicate attentions.

"But when she had completed her tender task, with what ardour did I not enter upon mine! I took off my clothes and stretched them under her, to render more endurable the hard and rugged ground on which she lay. I protected her delicate hands from the cold by my burning kisses and the warmth of my sighs. I passed the livelong night in watching over her as she slept, and praying

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout:

morsel for our friends."

"For the Lord's sake, Paul--"

"Well, let us forget her--for the present. Nor do we want to make a dainty morsel if we can help it. Come, brace up, Hal. It's up to us to turn a trick."

"Well?"

"I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I guess we were both too dazed to have good sense. What have you got strapped to your belt?"

"A gun," said Harry. "Of course I thought of that. But what good is it after that ducking? And I have only six cartridges."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott:

risk of passing over thus slightly their negligence upon their duty, and the propriety of an example in a case so peculiarly aggravated as the permitting one so suspicious as the marabout to approach within dagger's length of his person, when Richard interrupted him with, "Speak not of it, Neville--wouldst thou have me avenge a petty risk to myself more severely than the loss of England's banner? It has been stolen--stolen by a thief, or delivered up by a traitor, and no blood has been shed for it.--My sable friend, thou art an expounder of mysteries, saith the illustrious Soldan--now would I give thee thine own weight in gold, if, by raising one still blacker than thyself or by what

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 Silas Marner by George Eliot:

truth about Eppie: she would never recover from the repulsion the story of his earlier marriage would create, told to her now, after that long concealment. And the child, too, he thought, must become an object of repulsion: the very sight of her would be painful. The shock to Nancy's mingled pride and ignorance of the world's evil might even be too much for her delicate frame. Since he had married her with that secret on his heart, he must keep it there to the last. Whatever else he did, he could not make an irreparable breach between himself and this long-loved wife.

Meanwhile, why could he not make up his mind to the absence of children from a hearth brightened by such a wife? Why did his mind

Silas Marner