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 The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

"I overheard your dissertation on HERE AND THERE," said the girl. "I could not very well help it--it would have been rude to interrupt a conversation." Her eyes sparkled mischievously and her cheeks dimpled.

"You wouldn't have been interrupting a conversation," objected Bridge, smiling; "you would have been turning a monologue into a conversation."

"But it was a conversation," insisted the girl. "The wanderer was conversing with the bookkeeper. You are a victim of wanderlust, Mr. L. Bridge--don't deny it. You hate bookkeeping, or any other such prosaic vocation as requires permanent

The Mucker

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

lifted and slowly melted away as the sun burst from the clouds and sent its own white beams dancing over the meadows.

"Why, she's gone!" exclaimed the boy, and turned to see his companions still waving their hands in token of adieu to the vanished Polychrome.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Curtain Falls

Well, the rest of the story is quickly told, for the return Journey of our adventurers was without any important incident. The Scarecrow was so afraid of

The Tin Woodman of Oz

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy:

which she breathed a dead-alive "Good afternoon."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am?" said Henchard, as if he had not heard.

"I said good afternoon," she faltered.

"O yes, good afternoon, ma'am," he replied, touching his hat again. "I am glad to see you, ma'am." Lucetta looked embarrassed, and Henchard continued: "For we humble workmen here feel it a great honour that a lady should look in and take an interest in us."

She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter, too unendurable.

The Mayor of Casterbridge

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 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

Of her impiety, who changed her form Into the bird that most delights in singing, In my imagining appeared the trace;

And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn Within itself, that from without there came Nothing that then might be received by it.

Then reigned within my lofty fantasy One crucified, disdainful and ferocious In countenance, and even thus was dying.

Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)