Today's Stichomancy for Henry Ford

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare:

For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, And thou present'st a pure unstained prime. Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd; Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd, If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show, Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

LXXI

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving:

times he would be found far off in the prairies, or up the course of some petty stream, laden with plants of all kinds.

The Canadian voyageurs, who are a class of people that know nothing out of their immediate line, and with constitutional levity make a jest of anything they cannot understand, were extremely puzzled by this passion for collecting what they considered mere useless weeds. When they saw the worthy botanist coming back heavy laden with his specimens, and treasuring them up as carefully as a miser would his hoard, they used to make merry among themselves at his expense, regarding him as some whimsical kind of madman.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner:

woman." She was silent. She said with some difficulty: "Are you sure you love him? Are you sure it is not only the feeling a young girl has for an older man who is celebrated, and of whom every one is talking?"

"I have been nearly mad. I haven't slept for weeks!" She knit her little hands together, till the jewelled rings almost cut into the fingers. "He is everything to me; there is nothing else in the world. You, who are so great, and strong, and clever, and who care only for your work, and for men as your friends, you cannot understand what it is when one person is everything to you, when there is nothing else in the world!"

"And what do you want me to do?"

"Oh, I don't know!" She looked up. "A woman knows what she can do. Don't

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 Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther:

a man or a man out of a woman, or to nullify either sex, so little have they had the power to [sunder and] separate such creatures of God, or to forbid them from living [and cohabiting] honestly in marriage with one another. Therefore we are unwilling to assent to their abominable celibacy, nor will we [even] tolerate it, but we wish to have marriage free as God has instituted [and ordained] it, and we wish neither to rescind nor hinder His work; for Paul says, 1 Tim. 4, 1 ff., that this [prohibition of marriage] is a doctrine of devils.

XII. Of the Church.