Today's Stichomancy for Alan Greenspan

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber:

highly manicured hand on Effie's smooth arm. "You wouldn't need to stay young for me, Effie. I like you just as you are, with out the powder, or the toilette water, or the hair-pins."

His red, good-natured face had an expression upon it that was touchingly near patient resignation as he looked up into Effie's sparkling countenance. "You never looked so good to me as you do this minute, old girl. And if the day comes when you get lonesome--or change your mind--or----"

Effie shook her head, and started to draw on her long white gloves. "I guess I haven't refused you the way the dames in the novels do it. Maybe it's because I've had so little practice. But

Buttered Side Down

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne:

neglected the occasion, how could I ever took my children in the face? I do not refer to Mrs Pitman. . .'

'No, you never do,' said Michael.

'. . . but in the case of her own brother returning from Ballarat. . .' continued Pitman.

'. . . with his mind unhinged,' put in the lawyer.

'. . . returning from Ballarat with a large fortune, her impatience may be more easily imagined than described,' concluded Pitman.

'All right,' said Michael, 'be it so. And what do you propose to do?'

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare:

eare a hearer: that great Baby you see there, is not yet out of his swathing clouts

Rosin. Happily he's the second time come to them: for they say, an old man is twice a childe

Ham. I will Prophesie. Hee comes to tell me of the Players. Mark it, you say right Sir: for a Monday morning 'twas so indeed

Pol. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you

Ham. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you. When Rossius an Actor in Rome- Pol. The Actors are come hither my Lord

Hamlet

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 Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.