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 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James:

If they had been at all visibly blighted or battered, she would doubtless have grown, on tracing it back, haggard enough to match them; as matters stood, however, I could feel her, when she surveyed them, with her large white arms folded and the habit of serenity in all her look, thank the Lord's mercy that if they were ruined the pieces would still serve. Flights of fancy gave place, in her mind, to a steady fireside glow, and I had already begun to perceive how, with the development of the conviction that--as time went on without a public accident-- our young things could, after all, look out for themselves, she addressed her greatest solicitude to the sad case presented

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll:

Because I dare not shave - A little whisper at my ear Enquires the reason of my fear.

I answer "If that ruffian Jones Should recognise me here, He'd bellow out my name in tones Offensive to the ear: He chaffs me so on being stout (A thing that always puts me out)."

Ah me! I see him on the cliff! Farewell, farewell to hope,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

Who in humility keeps close to it.

Each striveth for appearance, and doth make His own inventions; and these treated are By preachers, and the Evangel holds its peace.

One sayeth that the moon did backward turn, In the Passion of Christ, and interpose herself So that the sunlight reached not down below;

And lies; for of its own accord the light Hid itself; whence to Spaniards and to Indians, As to the Jews, did such eclipse respond.

Florence has not so many Lapi and Bindi

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac:

made his son a lawyer. Simon had all the more opportunity of shining at the bar in the arrondissement of Arcis because he was the only barrister, solicitors pleading their own cases in these petty localities. The young man had really secured certain triumphs in the court of assizes of the Aube, but he was none the less an object of derision to Frederic Marest, /procureur-du-roi/, Olivier Vinet, the substitute /procureur/, and the judge, Michu,--the three best minds in the court.

Simon Giguet, like other men, paid goodly tribute to the mighty power of ridicule that pursued him. He liked to hear himself talk, and he talked on all occasions; he solemnly delivered himself of dry and