Today's Stichomancy for Mitt Romney

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac:

"Oats are very dear," said the sergeant to the mason.

"But they have not gone up like lime, relatively speaking," replied the contractor.

Then they walked round the hall.

"How one loses time here," said the mason, replacing a thick silver watch in his fob.

Luigi and Ginevra, sitting pressed to one another, seemed like one person. A poet would have admired their two heads, inspired by the same sentiment, colored in the same tones, silent and saddened in presence of that humming happiness sparkling in diamonds, gay with flowers,--a gayety in which there was something fleeting. The joy of

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman:

the Lancaster house, about half a mile away on the same side. There dwelt the Misses Amelia and Anna Lancaster, who were about Eudora's age, and a widowed sister, Mrs. Sophia Willing, who was much older. The Lancaster house was also a colonial mansion, much after the fashion of Eudora's, but it showed signs of continued opulence. Eudora's, behind her trees and leafing vines, was gray for lack of paint. Some of the colonial ornamental details about porches and roof were sloughing off or had already disappeared. The Lancaster house gleamed behind its grove of evergreen trees as white and perfect as in its youth. The windows showed rich slants of draperies behind their green

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon:

the Lyceum see "Hell." I. i. 33; II. iv. 27.

[12] Lit. "the apex of the confronting theatre."

[13] See "Horsemanship," viii. 6; "Anab." IV. viii. 28.

To come to the test manouvres.[14] The order in which the men will ride with showiest effect on these occasions has been already noted.[15] As far as the leader is himself concerned, and presuming he is mounted on a powerful horse, I would suggest that he should each time ride round on the outer flank; in which case he will himself be kept perpetually moving at a canter, and those with him, as they become the wheeling flank, will, by turns, fall into the same pace, with this result: the spectacle presented to the senate will be that

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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac:

The young man of whom we are now speaking, was much in advance of a column of recruits, known to be on its way from Cherbourg, which the mayor of Carentan was awaiting hourly, in order to give them their billets for the night. The young man walked with a jades step, but firmly, and his gait seemed to show that he had long been familiar with military hardships. Though the moon was shining on the meadows about Carentan, he had noticed heavy clouds on the horizon, and the fear of being overtaken by a tempest may have hurried his steps, which were certainly more brisk than his evident lassitude could have desired. On his back was an almost empty bag, and he held in his hand a boxwood stick, cut from the tall broad hedges of that shrub, which