Today's Stichomancy for Charles Lindbergh

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

firmness in his features! he is made to write ballads. The man who is with him and looks like a match-hawker, is a great music celebrity-- Gigelmi, the greatest Italian conductor known; but he has gone deaf, and is ending his days in penury, deprived of all that made it tolerable. Ah! here comes our great Ottoboni, the most guileless old fellow on earth; but he is suspected of being the most vindictive of all who are plotting for the regeneration of Italy. I cannot think how they can bear to banish such a good man."

And here Giardini looked narrowly at the Count, who, feeling himself under inquisition as to his politics, entrenched himself in Italian impassibility.

Gambara

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James:

delightfully emphasising her unlikeness to Mrs. Saltram. "Why not have the courage of one's forgiveness," she asked, "as well as the enthusiasm of one's adhesion?"

"Seeing how wonderfully you've threshed the whole thing out," I evasively replied, "gives me an extraordinary notion of the point your enthusiasm has reached."

She considered this remark an instant with her eyes on mine, and I divined that it struck her I might possibly intend it as a reference to some personal subjection to our fat philosopher, to some aberration of sensibility, some perversion of taste. At least I couldn't interpret otherwise the sudden flash that came into her

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon:

the people still more so.

This increase of the Jacobin spirit has resulted in the fact that political conceptions, institutions, and laws tend to impose themselves by force. Syndicalism, peaceful enough in other countries, immediately assumed in France an uncompromising and anarchical aspect, which betrayed itself in the shape of riots, sabotage, and incendiarism.

Not to be repressed by timid Governments, the Jacobin spirit produces melancholy ravages in minds of mediocre capacity. At a recent congress of railway men a third of the delegates voted approval of sabotage, and one of the secretaries of the

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 Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

And night, that opposite to him her orb Sounds, from the stream of Ganges issued forth, Holding the scales, that from her hands are dropp'd When she reigns highest: so that where I was, Aurora's white and vermeil-tinctur'd cheek To orange turn'd as she in age increas'd. Meanwhile we linger'd by the water's brink, Like men, who, musing on their road, in thought Journey, while motionless the body rests. When lo! as near upon the hour of dawn, Through the thick vapours Mars with fiery beam

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)