Today's Stichomancy for Stephen Hawking

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:

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 O'er ruined fort and storied plain,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Rides a white horse, I fancy we shall know it.

HAMILTON

It was a man, Burr, that was in my mind; No god, or ghost, or demon -- only a man: A man whose occupation is the need Of those who would not feel it if it bit them; And one who shapes an age while he endures The pin pricks of inferiorities; A cautious man, because he is but one; A lonely man, because he is a thousand. No marvel you are slow to find in him

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James:

while, they did show him something: the arch of a high doorway approached by a low terrace of steps, in the depth of which - it formed a dim vestibule - the raising of a curtain at the moment he passed gave him a glimpse of an avenue of gloom with a glow of tapers at the end. He stopped and looked up, recognising the place as a church. The thought quickly came to him that since he was tired he might rest there; so that after a moment he had in turn pushed up the leathern curtain and gone in. It was a temple of the old persuasion, and there had evidently been a function - perhaps a service for the dead; the high altar was still a blaze of candles. This was an exhibition he always liked, and he dropped into a seat

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 Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne:

'Well, my son, and we want to be extraded,' said the captain.

'What's our point? We want to have a consul extrade us as far as San Francisco and that merchant's office door. My idea is that Samoa would be found an eligible business centre. It's dead before the wind; the States have a consul there, and 'Frisco steamers call, so's we could skip right back and interview the merchant.'

'Samoa?' said Herrick. 'It will take us for ever to get there.'

'Oh, with a fair wind!' said the captain.

'No trouble about the log, eh?' asked Huish.

'No, SIR,' said Davis. 'Ligbt airs and baffling winds. Squalls