Today's Stichomancy for John Von Neumann

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells:

But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that satisfies all my forms of consciousness?

Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly real, from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy moral and spiritual phenomena. The former has encountered him, the other has as yet felt only unassigned impulses. One says God's will is so; the other that Right is so. One says God moves me to do this or that; the other the Good Will in me which I share with you and all well-disposed men, moves me to do this or that. But the former makes an exterior reference and escapes a risk of self-

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen:

the town below! We know whither they are taken! The greatest splendor and the greatest magnificence one can imagine await them. We peeped through the windows, and saw them planted in the middle of the warm room and ornamented with the most splendid things, with gilded apples, with gingerbread, with toys, and many hundred lights!

"And then?" asked the Fir Tree, trembling in every bough. "And then? What happens then?"

"We did not see anything more: it was incomparably beautiful."

"I would fain know if I am destined for so glorious a career," cried the Tree, rejoicing. "That is still better than to cross the sea! What a longing do I suffer! Were Christmas but come! I am now tall, and my branches spread like

Fairy Tales

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles:

OEDIPUS O argue not that thou art not a rogue.

CREON If thou dost count a virtue stubbornness, Unschooled by reason, thou art much astray.

OEDIPUS If thou dost hold a kinsman may be wronged, And no pains follow, thou art much to seek.

CREON Therein thou judgest rightly, but this wrong That thou allegest--tell me what it is.

Oedipus Trilogy

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 Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis:

it's his secret. I'm sure.

He has the most luminous eyes!

Like a wolf's, you know, when it gallops across the waste places -- under the stars, alone!

And the way he eats! I don't mean that he's noisy, you know. But the way he crunched a chick- en bone the last time he dined with me was perfectly WONDERFUL -- so nonchalant, you know, and loudly and -- and -- well, primitive! I'm SURE he's one!

I wouldn't go autoing with him for anything -- unless, of course, he gave me one of those compel-