Today's Stichomancy for Peter Gabriel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Redheaded Outfield by Zane Grey:

Upon Merritt then rained a multiplicity of excuses. Gillinger was not well, and ought to have that day's rest. Snead's eyes would profit by a lay-off. Deerfoot Browning was leading the league in base running, and as his legs were all bruised and scraped by sliding, a manager who was not an idiot would have a care of such valuable runmakers for his team. Lake had ``Charley- horse.'' Hathaway's arm was sore. Bane's stomach threatened gastritis. Spike Doran's finger needed a chance to heal. I was stale, and

The Redheaded Outfield

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:

The torches of a Thousand Nights Blaze through a single festival; And Saki-singers down the streets, Pour for us, in a stream divine, From goblets of your love-ghazals The rapture of your Sufi wine.

Prince, where your radiant cities smile, Grim hills their sombre vigils keep, Your ancient forests hoard and hold The legends of their centuried sleep; Your birds of peace white-pinioned float

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson:

And where was Enoch? prosperously sail'd The ship `Good Fortune,' tho' at setting forth The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook And almost overwhelm'd her, yet unvext She slipt across the summer of the world, Then after a long tumble about the Cape And frequent interchange of foul and fair, She passing thro' the summer world again, The breath of heaven came continually And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, Till silent in her oriental haven.

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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad:

I would no doubt have been properly horrified, had it not occurred to me that he and his chaps must be very hungry: that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for at least this month past. They had been engaged for six months (I don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of time--had no inherited experience to teach them as it were), and of course, as long as there was a piece of paper written over in accordance with some farcical law or other made down the river, it didn't enter anybody's head to trouble how they would live. Certainly they had brought

Heart of Darkness