Today's Stichomancy for John Von Neumann

dear, if I hadn't seen it, I shouldn't have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn't endure it! He's all French sensibility. He hid his face and said, "Assez, Mademoiselle! C'est plus fort que moi! Assez!" And Sir Arthur blew his nose and said, "Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!" While Dad sat with the tears simply running down his cheeks.'

'And what did Doctor Break do?'

'He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I never suspected him of sensibility.'

First it wills well; but the desire permits not, Which divine justice with the self-same will There was to sin, upon the torment sets.

And I, who have been lying in this pain Five hundred years and more, but just now felt A free volition for a better seat.

Therefore thou heardst the earthquake, and the pious Spirits along the mountain rendering praise Unto the Lord, that soon he speed them upwards."

So said he to him; and since we enjoy As much in drinking as the thirst is great,

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Faces and griefs, and words, and sunlit evenings, And chains self-forged that will not break nor lengthen, And cries that none can answer, few will hear. Have these things meaning? Or would you see more clearly If I should say 'My second wife grows tedious, Or, like gay tulip, keeps no perfumed secret'?

Or 'one day dies eventless as another, Leaving the seeker still unsatisfied, And more convinced life yields no satisfaction'? Or 'seek too hard, the sight at length grows callous, And beauty shines in vain'?--