Today's Stichomancy for Chuck Yeager

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther:

"full of grace"? One would have to think about a keg "full of" beer or a purse "full of" money. So I translated it: "You gracious one". This way a German can at last think about what the angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me corrupting the angelic greeting - and I still have not used the most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most satisfactory German and translated the salutation: "God says hello, Mary dear" (for that is what the angel was intending to say and what he would have said had he even been German!). If I had, I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of their great devotion to dear Mary and because I have destroyed the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James:

"One would like to represent such a girl as that," Paul continued.

"Ah there it is - there's nothing like life!" said his companion. "When you're finished, squeezed dry and used up and you think the sack's empty, you're still appealed to, you still get touches and thrills, the idea springs up - out of the lap of the actual - and shows you there's always something to be done. But I shan't do it - she's not for me!"

"How do you mean, not for you?"

"Oh it's all over - she's for you, if you like."

"Ah much less!" said Paul. "She's not for a dingy little man of letters; she's for the world, the bright rich world of bribes and

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

Our fathers skipped in the wheat, Our fathers hung from the branches, Our fathers danced in the street. "Then came the terrible farmers, Nothing of play they knew, Only. . .they caught our fathers And set them to labour too! "Set them to work in the cornland With ploughs and sickles and flails,

Verses 1889-1896

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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac:

drunkenness, could send some sober thoughts through the spendthrift's soul. He examined his life, and became thoughtful, like a man involved in a lawsuit on his way to the Court.

Bartolommeo Belvidero, Don Juan's father, was an old man of ninety, who had devoted the greatest part of his life to business pursuits. He had acquired vast wealth in many a journey to magical Eastern lands, and knowledge, so it was said, more valuable than the gold and diamonds, which had almost ceased to have any value for him.

"I would give more to have a tooth in my head than for a ruby," he would say at times with a smile. The indulgent father loved to