Today's Stichomancy for Neal Stephenson

That after holy Tye and first nights stir Yet still is Modestie, and still retaines More of the maid to sight, than Husbands paines; We pray our Play may be so; For I am sure It has a noble Breeder, and a pure, A learned, and a Poet never went More famous yet twixt Po and silver Trent: Chaucer (of all admir'd) the Story gives, There constant to Eternity it lives. If we let fall the Noblenesse of this, And the first sound this child heare, be a hisse,

to this end I sold my benefactor's house, with many of the effects, at a price much below their worth. The most of the books and plate, together with some other articles, I kept, and packing them in cases, I caused them to be transported down the river to Cadiz, to the care of those same agents to whom I had received letters from the Yarmouth merchants.

This being done I followed thither myself, taking the bulk of my fortune with me in gold, which I hid artfully in numerous packages. And so it came to pass that after a stay of a year in Seville, I turned my back on it for ever. My sojourn there had been fortunate, for I came to it poor and left it a rich man, to say

Montezuma's Daughter

road, and now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly distance, and sailed along the mountain like clouds. From time to time a warm wind rustled down the valley, and set all the chestnuts dangling their bunches of foliage and fruit; the ear was filled with whispering music, and the shadows danced in tune. And next moment the breeze had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved except our travelling feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous ribs and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed in the moonshine; and high overhead, in some lone house, there burned one lighted window, one square spark of red in the huge field of sad nocturnal colouring.