Today's Stichomancy for Franklin Roosevelt

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther:

law! Therefore, it does not follow that because good works do not help, bad works will; just as it does not follow that because the sun cannot help a blind person see, the night and darkness must help him see.

It astounds me that one can be offended by something as obvious as this! Just tell me, is Christ's death and resurrection our work, what we do, or not? It is obviously not our work, nor is it the work of the law. Now it is Christ's death and resurrection alone which saves and frees us from sin, as Paul writes in Rom. 4: "He died for our sin and arose for our righteousness." Tell me more! What is the work by which we take hold of Christ's death and

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle:

woven round him.

"In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my uncle's life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house as in another.

"It was in January, '85, that my poor father met his end, and two years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this curse had passed way from the family, and that it had ended with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon,

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac:

we should be too suddenly brought down to the general tone of the opera, here stamped on that terrible fury of diminished sevenths which resolves itself into an infernal waltz, and finally brings us face to face with the demons.

"How emphatically Bertram's couplet stands out in B minor against that diabolical chorus, depicting his paternity, but mingling in fearful despair with these demoniacal strains.

"Then comes the delightful transition of Alice's reappearance, with the /ritornel/ in B flat. I can still hear that air of angelical simplicity--the nightingale after a storm. Thus the grand leading idea of the whole is worked out in the details; for what could be more

Gambara

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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf:

disaster, in his disaster, she said shyly:

"When did Minta lose her brooch?"

He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams. He shook his head. "On the beach," he said.

"I'm going to find it," he said, "I'm getting up early." This being kept secret from Minta, he lowered his voice, and turned his eyes to where she sat, laughing, beside Mr Ramsay.

Lily wanted to protest violently and outrageously her desire to help him, envisaging how in the dawn on the beach she would be the one to pounce on the brooch half-hidden by some stone, and thus herself be included among the sailors and adventurers. But what did he reply to

To the Lighthouse