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 The Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln:

"You stated then that you had not recognized Jimmie in the court room. Had you already penetrated his disguise at your house?"

"And if I had?"

"Did you?" Kent was doggedly persistent, and Helen's fingers closed around her handbag with convulsive force. Why had she not sent Barbara to see Kent in her place?

"Did I what?" she parried.

"Did you recognize and talk with Jimmie Turnbull in your house?"

"I talked with him, yes," she admitted, and her voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"As Jimmie Turnbull or Smith the burglar?"

The Red Seal

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

which told of the arrest of another man, who was under shadow of punishment for the crime which he himself had committed. When he had read this report through, he turned to the other papers. He was quite calm now, outwardly calm at least.

When he had finished reading the papers he laid them in a heap beside him and reached out for his notebook. As he opened it the two watchers saw that between its first pages there was a sealed and addressed letter. Two other envelopes were contained in the notebook, envelopes which were also addressed although still open. Muller's sharp eyes could read the addresses as Thorne took them up in turn, looking long at each of them. One envelope was addressed

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

loss if even a mean man perished. For thus he reasoned, nor made a secret of the conclusion he had come to: so long as her citizens continued tranquilly adherent to the laws the happiness of Sparta was secure.[7] And for the rest Sparta would once again be strong on that day when the states of Hellas should learn wisdom.

[3] Or, "he was at the same time the most obvious in his allegiance to the laws."

[4] Lit. "would have taken on himself . . . would have ventured on revolution."

[5] Lit. "as a father to his children."

[6] Or, "and was ready to stand by their side in time of trouble."

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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson:

broken forth, or a great artist had only then completed, by some cunning touch, the composition of the picture? And not only a change of posture - a snatch of perfume, the sudden singing of a bird, the freshness of some pulse of air from an invisible sea, the light shadow of a travelling cloud, the merest nothing that sends a little shiver along the most infinitesimal nerve of a man's body - not one of the least of these but has a hand somehow in the general effect, and brings some refinement of its own into the character of the pleasure we feel.

And if the external conditions are thus varied and