Today's Stichomancy for John D. Rockefeller

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas:

not often give, and sometimes takes back what he has given; he took it back again as soon as peace was made and he was no longer in want of me. Certainly I was not worthy to replace M. de Treville, of illustrious memory; but they had promised me, and they had given me; they ought to have stopped there."

"Is that what dissatisfies you, monsieur? Well I shall make inquiries. I love justice; and your claim, though made in military fashion, does not displease me."

"Oh, sire!" said the officer, "your majesty has ill understood me; I no longer claim anything now."

Ten Years Later

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer:

buildings, {21} jeering at him tauntingly as they did so.

"Telemachus," said one youngster, "means to be the death of us; I suppose he thinks he can bring friends to help him from Pylos, or again from Sparta, where he seems bent on going. Or will he go to Ephyra as well, for poison to put in our wine and kill us?"

Another said, "Perhaps if Telemachus goes on board ship, he will be like his father and perish far from his friends. In this case we should have plenty to do, for we could then divide up his property amongst us: as for the house we can let his mother and the man who marries her have that."

The Odyssey

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare:

Who Piramus presented, in their sport, Forsooke his Scene, and entred in a brake, When I did him at this aduantage take, An Asses nole I fixed on his head. Anon his Thisbie must be answered, And forth my Mimmick comes: when they him spie, As Wilde-geese, that the creeping Fowler eye, Or russed-pated choughes, many in sort (Rising and cawing at the guns report) Seuer themselues, and madly sweepe the skye: So at his sight, away his fellowes flye,

A Midsummer Night's Dream

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 When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells:

and they were going on towards the markets.

The roar of the multitude was near now: it leapt to thunder. And, arresting his attention, a fluttering of black banners, the waving of blue canvas and brown rags, and the swarming vastness of the theatre near the public markets came into view down a long passage. The picture opened out. He perceived they were entering the great theatre of his first appearance, the Freat theatre he had last seen as a chequer-work of glare and blackness in his flight from the red police. This time he entered it along a gallery at a level high

When the Sleeper Wakes