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 The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin:

trees were embedded, and from the lower part of which they must have sprung, had accumulated in successive thin layers around their trunks; and the stone yet retained the impression of the bark.

It required little geological practice to interpret the marvellous story which this scene at once unfolded; though I confess I was at first so much astonished that I could scarcely believe the plainest evidence. I saw the spot where a cluster of fine trees once waved their branches on the shores of the Atlantic, when that ocean (now driven back 700 miles) came to the foot of the Andes. I saw that they

The Voyage of the Beagle

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu:

earliest commentary on Sun Tzu actually came from the pen of this extraordinary man, whose biography in the SAN KUO CHIH reads like a romance. One of the greatest military geniuses that the world has seen, and Napoleonic in the scale of his operations, he was especially famed for the marvelous rapidity of his marches, which has found expression in the line "Talk of Ts`ao Ts`ao, and Ts`ao Ts`ao will appear." Ou-yang Hsiu says of him that he was a great captain who "measured his strength against Tung Cho, Lu Pu and the two Yuan, father and son, and vanquished them all; whereupon he divided the Empire of Han with Wu and Shu, and made himself king. It is recorded that whenever a council of war was held by

The Art of War

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:

the scent of the mango grove, And sweet are the sands at the full o' the moon with the sound of the voices we love. But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee: Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea.

THE SNAKE-CHARMER

Whither dost thou hide from the magic of my flute-call? In what moonlight-tangled meshes of perfume, Where the clustering keovas guard the squirrel's slumber,

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 Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll:

(A thing that always puts me out)."

Ah me! I see him on the cliff! Farewell, farewell to hope, If he should look this way, and if He's got his telescope! To whatsoever place I flee, My odious rival follows me!

For every night, and everywhere, I meet him out at dinner; And when I've found some charming fair, And vowed to die or win her,