Today's Stichomancy for Richard Branson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson:

round black eyes, comical tufted eyebrows, and a protuberant forehead; and was dressed in clothes of a Quakerish cut. In spite of his plainness, he had that inscrutable air of a man well-to-do in his affairs. I conceived he had been some while observing me from a distance, for a sparrow sat betwixt us quite unalarmed on the breech of a piece of cannon. So soon as our eyes met, he drew near and addressed me in the French language, which he spoke with a good fluency but an abominable accent.

'I have the pleasure of addressing Monsieur le Vicomte Anne de Keroual de Saint-Yves?' said he.

'Well,' said I, 'I do not call myself all that; but I have a right

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft:

to find? Would it prove the awesome, brain-shattering truth of something past normal conception, or shew only that I was dreaming?

The next I knew I had ceased my tiptoed racing and was standing still, staring at a row of maddeningly familiar hieroglyphed shelves. They were in a state of almost perfect preservation, and only three of the doors in this vicinity had sprung open. My feelings toward these shelves cannot be described - so utter and insistent was the sense of old acquaintance. I was looking high up at a row near the top and wholly out of my reach, and wondering how I could climb to best advantage. An open door four rows from the

Shadow out of Time

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

not often overtaken by the hounds by fair hunting.[48] When caught, it is the victim of a misfortune alien to its physical nature.

[46] {meta touton}, sc. "with these other causes"; al. "with the dogs"; i.e. "like a second nightmare pack."

[47] Reading {orthion}, or if {orthon}, transl. "straight on."

[48] {kata podas}, i.e. "by running down"; cf. "Mem." II. vi. 9; "Cyrop." I. vi. 40, re two kinds of hound: the one for scent, the other for speed.

The fact is, there is no other animal of equal size which is at all its match in speed. Witness the conformation of its body: the light, small drooping head [narrow in front];[49] the [thin cylindrical][50]

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 Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes:

a thicket-hedge. No wonder if he is dismayed. "Lady, do you stay here," he says, "beside this thicket-hedge a while, until these people shall have passed. I do not wish them to catch sight of you, for I do not know what manner of people they are, nor of what they go in search. I trust we may not attract their attention. But I see nowhere any place where we could take refuge, should they wish to injure us. I know not if any harm may come to me, but not from fear shall I fail to sally out against them. And if any one assails me, I shall not fail to joust with him. Yet, I am so sore and weary that it is no wonder if I grieve. Now to meet them I must go, and do you stay quiet