Today's Stichomancy for Steve Jobs

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac:

he guided her taste in dress; he trained her to converse; he took her from theatre to theatre, and made her study literature and current history. This education he accomplished with all the care of a lover, father, master, and husband; but he did it soberly and discreetly; he managed both enjoyments and instructions in such a manner as not to destroy the value of her religious ideas. In short, he carried out his enterprise with the wisdom of a great master. At the end of four years, he had the happiness of having formed in the Comtesse de Vandenesse one of the most lovable and remarkable young women of our day.

Marie-Angelique felt for Felix precisely the feelings with which Felix

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato:

indifferent, and would become evil)--in such a case the indifferent becomes a friend of the good for the sake of getting rid of the evil. In this intermediate 'indifferent' position the philosopher or lover of wisdom stands: he is not wise, and yet not unwise, but he has ignorance accidentally clinging to him, and he yearns for wisdom as the cure of the evil. (Symp.)

After this explanation has been received with triumphant accord, a fresh dissatisfaction begins to steal over the mind of Socrates: Must not friendship be for the sake of some ulterior end? and what can that final cause or end of friendship be, other than the good? But the good is desired by us only as the cure of evil; and therefore if there were no evil

Lysis

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton:

man who has his watch in his hand,--had set forth the object of his visit. He had "run over" to England on business, and finding himself in the neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to leave it without paying his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without asking her, if the occasion offered, what she meant to do about Bob Elwell's family.

The words touched the spring of some obscure dread in Mary's bosom. Did her visitor, after all, know what Boyne had meant by his unfinished phrase? She asked for an elucidation of his question, and noticed at once that he seemed surprised at her continued ignorance of the subject. Was it possible that she

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 The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

I say in Heaven, of thee I made a boast!

Truly thou art a cloak that quickly shortens, So that unless we piece thee day by day Time goeth round about thee with his shears!

With 'You,' which Rome was first to tolerate, (Wherein her family less perseveres,) Yet once again my words beginning made;

Whence Beatrice, who stood somewhat apart, Smiling, appeared like unto her who coughed At the first failing writ of Guenever.

And I began: "You are my ancestor,

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)