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 Lesser Hippias by Plato:

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then in the art of medicine the voluntary is better than the involuntary?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, and in lute-playing and in flute-playing, and in all arts and sciences, is not that mind the better which voluntarily does what is evil and dishonourable, and goes wrong, and is not the worse that which does so involuntarily?

HIPPIAS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: And what would you say of the characters of slaves? Should we not prefer to have those who voluntarily do wrong and make mistakes, and

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov:

answer. At last, to make an end of uncertainty, without looking round he felt his old woman's cold hand. The lifted hand fell like a log.

"She is dead, then! What a business!"

And the turner cried. He was not so much sorry as annoyed. He thought how quickly everything passes in this world! His trouble had hardly begun when the final catastrophe had happened. He had not had time to live with his old woman, to show her he was sorry for her before she died. He had lived with her for forty years, but those forty years had passed by as it were in a fog. What with drunkenness, quarreling, and poverty, there had been no

The Schoolmistress and Other Stories

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

- recognized the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman at once, and greeted them with respectful salutations.

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"Good day!" said the Scarecrow, gallantly removing his hat, while the Woodman gave a soldierly salute; "we have come to request an audience with your fair Ruler."

"Glinda is now within her palace, awaiting you," returned the Captain; "for she saw you coming long before you arrived."

"That is strange!" said Tip, wondering.

"Not at all," answered the Scarecrow, "for Glinda the Good is a mighty Sorceress, and nothing that goes on in the Land of Oz escapes her notice. I

The Marvelous Land of Oz

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 Bucolics by Virgil:

Thou now art passing, or dost skirt the shore Of the Illyrian main,- will ever dawn That day when I thy deeds may celebrate, Ever that day when through the whole wide world I may renown thy verse- that verse alone Of Sophoclean buskin worthy found? With thee began, to thee shall end, the strain. Take thou these songs that owe their birth to thee, And deign around thy temples to let creep This ivy-chaplet 'twixt the conquering bays.

Scarce had night's chilly shade forsook the sky