Today's Stichomancy for Nikola Tesla

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli:

have determined the Medici to give him this employment, for an old writer observes that "an able statesman out of work, like a huge whale, will endeavour to overturn the ship unless he has an empty cask to play with."

When the "History of Florence" was finished, Machiavelli took it to Rome for presentation to his patron, Giuliano de' Medici, who had in the meanwhile become pope under the title of Clement VII. It is somewhat remarkable that, as, in 1513, Machiavelli had written "The Prince" for the instruction of the Medici after they had just regained power in Florence, so, in 1525, he dedicated the "History of Florence" to the head of the family when its ruin was now at hand. In that year

The Prince

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

however, the lieutenant's head begins to whirl, and before his eye there flits the image of Suvorov[4]. He advances to the great encounter, and impulsively cries, "Forward, my sons!"--cries it without reflecting that he may be spoiling the plan of the general attack, that millions of rifles may be protruding their muzzles through the embrasures of the impregnable, towering walls of the fortress, that his own impotent assault may be destined to be dissipated like dust before the wind, and that already there may have been launched on its whistling career the bullet which is to close for ever his vociferous throat. However, if Nozdrev resembled the headstrong, desperate lieutenant whom we have just pictured as

Dead Souls

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

As he crossed the waiting-room, he said,--

"Messieurs, I have not delayed you long, I hope."

Then, after distributing a few grasps of the hand, he departed.

Three hours later, when the colonel entered the salon where he was presented to Madame de Rastignac, he found there the Baron de Nucingen, who came nearly every day to breakfast with his son-in-law before the Bourse hour, Emile Blondet of the "Debats," Messieurs Moreau (de l'Oise), Dionis, and Camusot, three deputies madly loquacious, and two newly elected deputies whose names it is doubtful if Rastignac knew himself. Franchessini also recognized Martial de la Roche-Hugon, the minister's brother-in-law, and the inevitable des

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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

windows, and all the tiny girls looked at the rain coming down, coming down in drops, so many drops; and so fast the drops came that they seemed to come in long strings of drops straight from the sky.

Then one little girl laughed and began to beat on the window by which she stood, to beat all over it as far as her little damp pink fingers could reach, and to say:

``Rain! Rain! Go to Spain! Rain! Rain! Go to Spain! Rain! Rain!