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 Travels and Researches in South Africa by Dr. David Livingstone:

formerly alight@mercury.interpath.net). To assure a high quality text, the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared. [Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are CAPITALIZED. Some obvious errors have been corrected.]

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. Also called, Travels and Researches in South Africa; or, Journeys and Researches in South Africa. By David Livingstone [British (Scot) Missionary and Explorer--1813-1873.]

David Livingstone was born in Scotland, received his medical degree from the University of Glasgow, and was sent to South Africa by the London Missionary Society. Circumstances led him to try to meet

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen:

had dimmed the outlines of all things and all distances with a faint mist, and people who observed the thermometer spoke of an abnormal register, of a temperature that was almost tropical. Strangely that wonderful hot day of the fifties rose up again in Clarke's imagination; the sense of dazzling all-pervading sunlight seemed to blot out the shadows and the lights of the laboratory, and he felt again the heated air beating in gusts about his face, saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard the myriad murmur of the summer.

"I hope the smell doesn't annoy you, Clarke; there's nothing unwholesome about it. It may make you a bit sleepy,

The Great God Pan

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

house did not move.

He turned and walked up the hill.

"I'm sorry you didn't find Ellen--I should have liked to see her again," May said as they drove home through the dusk. "But perhaps she wouldn't have cared--she seems so changed."

"Changed?" echoed her husband in a colourless voice, his eyes fixed on the ponies' twitching ears.

"So indifferent to her friends, I mean; giving up New York and her house, and spending her time with such queer people. Fancy how hideously uncomfortable 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 Burning Daylight by Jack London:

she's come down at last."

"Don't you read ahead, now," he warned, as he passed around the house and took the trail that led down the wall of the canon.

Halfway down the trail, he came upon the slide. It was a small affair, only a few tons of earth and crumbling rock; but, starting from fifty feet above, it had struck the water pipe with force sufficient to break it at a connection. Before proceeding to work, he glanced up the path of the slide, and he glanced with the eye of the earth-trained miner. And he saw what made his eyes startle and cease for the moment from questing farther.

"Hello," he communed aloud, "look who's here."