Today's Stichomancy for Ronald Reagan

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James:

are the lettered mile-stones. He had in general little taste for the past as a part of his own history; at other times and in other places it mostly seemed to him pitiful to consider and impossible to repair; but on these occasions he accepted it with something of that positive gladness with which one adjusts one's self to an ache that begins to succumb to treatment. To the treatment of time the malady of life begins at a given moment to succumb; and these were doubtless the hours at which that truth most came home to him. The day was written for him there on which he had first become acquainted with death, and the successive phases of the acquaintance were marked each with a flame.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:

pents the poppies of lips that are opiate- sweet; Their glittering garments of purple are burn- ing like tremulous dawns in the quiver- ing air, And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle and tread of their rhythmical, slumber- soft feet.

Now silent, now singing and swaying and swing- ing, like blossoms that bend to the breezes or showers,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale:

Oh, take the sandals off my feet, You know not what you do; For all my world is in your arms, My sun and stars are you.

April Song

Willow, in your April gown Delicate and gleaming, Do you mind in years gone by All my dreaming?

Spring was like a call to me That I could not answer,

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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte:

received thereby the slightest benefit, I am well rewarded for my pains.

To avoid trouble and confusion, I have taken my pupils one by one, and discussed their various qualities; but this can give no adequate idea of being worried by the whole three together; when, as was often the case, all were determined to 'be naughty, and to tease Miss Grey, and put her in a passion.'

Sometimes, on such occasions, the thought has suddenly occurred to me - 'If they could see me now!' meaning, of course, my friends at home; and the idea of how they would pity me has made me pity myself - so greatly that I have had the utmost difficulty to

Agnes Grey