Today's Stichomancy for Thomas Jefferson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling:

intellectually "beany" and proud of himself and his powers, and he would take no hint. He worked nine hours a day steadily.

"Very well," said the doctor, "you'll break down because you are over-engined for your beam." McGoggin was a little chap.

One day, the collapse came--as dramatically as if it had been meant to embellish a Tract.

It was just before the Rains. We were sitting in the verandah in the dead, hot, close air, gasping and praying that the black-blue clouds would let down and bring the cool. Very, very far away, there was a faint whisper, which was the roar of the Rains breaking over the river. One of the men heard it, got out of his chair,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson:

raate.

V. An' I hallus comed to 's choorch afoor moy Sally wur dead, An' 'eerd un a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock* ower my yead, An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad summut to saay, An I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said an' I comed awaay. *Cockchafer.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare:

That I may backe to Athens by day-light, From these that my poore companie detest; And sleepe that sometime shuts vp sorrowes eie, Steale me a while from mine owne companie.

Sleepe.

Rob. Yet but three? Come one more, Two of both kindes makes vp foure. Here she comes, curst and sad, Cupid is a knauish lad, Enter Hermia.

Thus to make poore females mad

A Midsummer Night's Dream

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 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton:

III.

It invariably happened in the same way.

Mrs. Julius Beaufort, on the night of her annual ball, never failed to appear at the Opera; indeed, she always gave her ball on an Opera night in order to emphasise her complete superiority to household cares, and her possession of a staff of servants competent to organise every detail of the entertainment in her absence.

The Beauforts' house was one of the few in New York that possessed a ball-room (it antedated even Mrs. Manson Mingott's and the Headly Chiverses');