Today's Stichomancy for Enrico Fermi

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf:

first pillar-box she came to. When, however, she was fairly out of doors, and constantly invited by pillar-boxes and post-offices to slip her envelope down their scarlet throats, she forbore. She made absurd excuses, as that she did not wish to cross the road, or that she was certain to pass another post-office in a more central position a little farther on. The longer she held the letter in her hand, however, the more persistently certain questions pressed upon her, as if from a collection of voices in the air. These invisible people wished to be informed whether she was engaged to William Rodney, or was the engagement broken off? Was it right, they asked, to invite Cassandra for a visit, and was William Rodney in love with her, or

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

had disappeared since the malevolent tom-tom had begun its incessant beating far within the black haunted woods where no dweller ventured. There were insane shouts and harrowing screams, soul-chilling chants and dancing devil-flames; and, the frightened messenger added, the people could stand it no more. So a body of twenty police, filling two carriages and an automobile, had set out in the late afternoon with the shivering squatter as a guide. At the end of the passable road they alighted, and for miles splashed on in silence through the terrible cypress woods where day never came. Ugly roots and malignant hanging nooses of Spanish moss

Call of Cthulhu

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

ne veux pas le regarder.

PREMIER SOLDAT. C'est notre capitaine, Seigneur. C'est le jeune Syrien que vous avez fait capitaine il y a trois jours seulement.

HERODE. Je n'ai donne aucun ordre de le tuer.

SECOND SOLDAT. Il s'est tue lui-meme, Seigneur.

HERODE. Pourquoi? Je l'ai fait capitaine!

SECOND SOLDAT. Nous ne savons pas, Seigneur. Mais il s'est tue lui-meme.

HERODE. Cela me semble etrange. Je pensais qu'il n'y avait que les philosophes romains qui se tuaient. N'est-ce pas, Tigellin, que les philosophes e Rome se tuent?

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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling:

doing.

Besides, I am hopelessly in love with about eight American maidens--all perfectly delightful till the next one comes into the room.

O-Toyo was a darling, but she lacked several things--conversation for one. You cannot live on giggles. She shall remain unmarried at Nagasaki, while I roast a battered heart before the shrine of a big Kentucky blonde, who had for a nurse when she was little a negro "mammy."

By consequence she has welded on California beauty, Paris dresses, Eastern culture, Europe trips, and wild Western