Today's Stichomancy for Albert Einstein

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac:

The said espousals were celebrated with great magnificence, and our Holy Father himself wedded the pair. The marriage thus consummated, the Holy Father held a consistory at which he created four cardinals and devoted them to the king,--to wit: Cardinal Le Veneur, formerly bishop of Lisieux and grand almoner; the Cardinal de Boulogne of the family of la Chambre, brother on the mother's side of the Duke of Albany; the Cardinal de Chatillon of the house of Coligny, nephew of the Sire de Montmorency, and the Cardinal de Givry."

When Strozzi delivered the dowry in presence of the court he noticed some surprise on the part of the French seigneurs; they even said

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.:

sincerity itself. There was, indeed, a certain central reserve; but that might only he an integrity of pride; or it might be connected with painful circumstances in his history, of which the melancholy in his face was the outward sign.

That very evening my constructive imagination was furnished with a detail on which it was soon to be actively set to work. I had been rambling about the old fortifications, and was returning at nightfall through the old archway near Albert Durer's house, when a man passed by me. We looked at each other in that automatic way in which men look when they meet in narrow places, and I felt, so to speak, a start of recognition in the eyes of the man who passed.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson:

beam of wood, overran the lower story of the house, set free the prisoners, and finding one of them in the VINE, a sort of Scavenger's Daughter of the place and period, redoubled in fury against Du Chayla, and sought by repeated assaults to carry the upper floors. But he, on his side, had given absolution to his men, and they bravely held the staircase.

'Children of God,' cried the prophet, 'hold your hands. Let us burn the house, with the priest and the satellites of Baal.'

The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden by means of knotted sheets; some escaped across the river under the bullets of the insurgents;

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 Underdogs by Mariano Azuela:

legs. "I sighted one: a fellow with a hell of a lot of gold plastered all over him. His gold chevrons shone like a Goddamned sunset. And I let him go by, fool that I was. He took off his handkerchief and waved it. I stood there with my mouth wide open like a fool! Then I ducked and he started shooting, bullet after bullet. I let him kill a poor cargador. Then I said: 'My turn, now! Holy Vir- gin, Mother of God! Don't let me miss this son of a bitch.' But, by Christ, he disappeared. He was riding a hell of a fine nag; he went by me like lightning! There was another poor fool coming up the road. He got it and

The Underdogs