Today's Stichomancy for Dr. Phil

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus:

should yet live tranquil and contented? Behold God hath sent you a man to show you in act and deed that it may be so. Behold me! I have neither house nor possessions nor servants: the ground is my couch; I have no wife, no children, no shelter--nothing but earth and sky, and one poor cloak. And what lack I yet? am I not untouched by sorrow, by fear? am I not free? . . . when have I laid anything to the charge of God or Man? when have I accussed any? hath any of you seen me with a sorrowful countenance? And in what wise treat I those of whom you stand in fear and awe? Is it not as slaves? Who when he seeth me doth not think that he beholdeth his Master and his King?

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

a light in the apartments ahead of me. Reaching what appeared to be a doorway I discovered that it was but an opening upon an immense inner chamber which towered from the first floor, two stories below me, to the dome-like roof of the building, high above my head. The floor of this great circular hall was thronged with chieftains, warriors and women, and at one end was a great raised platform upon which squatted the most hideous beast I had ever put my eyes upon. He had all the cold, hard, cruel, terrible features of the green warriors, but accentuated and debased by the animal passions to which he had given himself over

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon:

annihilated for a space of fifty years.

These events brought Government stock down from 116 to 50 francs. Business was at a standstill. The peasants, who thought themselves threatened by the Socialists, and the bourgeois, whose taxes the Assembly had increased by half, turned against the Republic, and when Louis-Napoleon promised to re-establish order he found himself welcomed with enthusiasm. A candidate for the position of President of the Republic, who according to the new Constitution must be elected by the whole body of citizens, he was chosen by 5,500,000 votes.

Very soon at odds with the Chamber, the prince decided on a coup

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 A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain:

"Guard of honor for you and Thorndike."

"Bless - your - HEART! I'd rather have it from you than from the Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, you incomparable little soldier! - and I don't need to take any oath to that, for you to believe it."

"I THOUGHT you'd like it, BB."

"LIKE it? Well, I should say so! Now then - all ready - sound the advance, and away we go!"

CHAPTER IX - SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN

"Well, this is the way it happened. We did the escort duty; then we came back and struck for the plain and put the Rangers through a