Today's Stichomancy for Robert Frost

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis:

interesting neuralgia, and the garage had overcharged him. When Babbitt came home, everybody had Troubles: his wife was simultaneously thinking about discharging the impudent new maid, and worried lest the maid leave; and Tinka desired to denounce her teacher.

"Oh, quit fussing!" Babbitt fussed. "You never hear me whining about my Troubles, and yet if you had to run a real-estate office--Why, to-day I found Miss Bannigan was two days behind with her accounts, and I pinched my finger in my desk, and Lyte was in and just as unreasonable as ever."

He was so vexed that after dinner, when it was time for a tactful escape to Tanis, he merely grumped to his wife, "Got to go out. Be back by eleven, should think."

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Were the eyes of Pau-Puk-Keewis As he came forth to the freshness Of the pleasant Summer morning. All the birds were singing gayly, All the streamlets flowing swiftly, And the heart of Pau-Puk-Keewis Sang with pleasure as the birds sing, Beat with triumph like the streamlets, As he wandered through the village, In the early gray of morning, With his fan of turkey-feathers,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

stamped his foot in rage.

"It is always the Sly One!" he cried. "It was Hooja who caused the first trouble between you and the Beautiful One.

"It was Hooja who betrayed our trust, and all but caused our recapture by the Sagoths that time we escaped from Phutra.

"It was Hooja who tricked you and substituted a Mahar for Dian when you started upon your return journey to your own world.

"It was Hooja who schemed and lied until he had

Pellucidar

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 Hellenica by Xenophon:

yourselves. For imagine the Thebans, your own sworn foes and next-door neighbours, masters of Hellas! You will find it a painful and onerous exchange indeed for the distant antagonism of Sparta. As a mere matter of self-interest, now is the time to help yourselves, while you may still reckon upon allies, instead of waiting until they are lost, and you are forced to fight a life-and-death battle with the Thebans single-handed. But the fear suggests itself, that should the Lacedaemonians escape now, they will live to cause you trouble at some future date. Lay this maxim to heart, then, that it is not the potential greatness of those we benefit, but of those we injure, which causes apprehension. And this other also, that it behoves individuals