Today's Stichomancy for Neal Stephenson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne:

signal evil;--yet with all the good temper in the world I affirm it of her, that in every stage of my life, and at every turn and corner where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful misadventures and cross accidents as ever small Hero sustained.

Chapter 1.VI.

In the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly when I was born; but I did not inform you how. No, that particular was reserved entirely for a chapter by itself;--besides, Sir, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself all at once.

--You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you see, to write

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson:

his phantom levees, and in a very gallant manner represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all these things of clay are mingled with the dust, the king's crown itself is shown for sixpence to the vulgar; but the stone palace has outlived these charges. For fifty weeks together, it is no more than a show for tourists and a museum of old furniture; but on the fifty- first, behold the palace reawakened and mimicking its past. The Lord Commissioner, a kind of stage sovereign, sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and clattering escort come and go before the gate; at night,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

And in submission will attend on her. Will not your honors bear me company?

BEDFORD. No, truly; it is more than manners will: And I have heard it said, unbidden guests Are often welcomest when they are gone.

TALBOT. Well then, alone, since there 's no remedy, I mean to prove this lady's courtesy. Come hither, Captain. [Whispers] You perceive my mind?

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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

Time, and to sing ``Angels Bright,'' and to know the A B C blocks. Sister Theckla, who always stayed the one hour in that room, had gone to say to the Sisters that the one hour was over, and that it was raining, and what must the little girls do now?

While Sister Theckla was gone, all the little girls went to the windows, and all the tiny girls looked at the rain coming down, coming down in drops, so many drops; and so fast the drops came that they seemed to come in long strings of drops straight from the sky.

Then one little girl laughed and began to beat on the window by which she stood, to beat all over it as far as her little damp pink fingers could reach, and to say: