Today's Stichomancy for Tom Hanks

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln:

expressly say. MUST Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.

From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other.

If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

"A De Tany, madam, were a great and valuable cap- ture in these troublous times," replied the Earl, "and that alone were enough to necessitate my keeping you; but a beautiful De Tany is yet a different matter and so I will grant you at least one favor, I will not take you to the King, but a prisoner you shall be in mine own castle for I am alone, and need the cheering com- pany of a fair and loving lady."

The girl's head went high as she looked the Earl full in the eye.

"Think you, John de Fulm, Earl of Buckingham, that

The Outlaw of Torn

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

in his grasp, another figure sprang from a cluster of dense foliage that half hid a golden fountain close at hand. A tall, straight youth he was, with black hair and keen grey eyes; broad of shoulder and narrow of hip; a clean-limbed fighting man. His skin was but faintly tinged with the copper colour that marks the red men of Mars from the other races of the dying planet--he was like them, and yet there was a subtle difference greater even than that which lay in his lighter skin and his grey eyes.

There was a difference, too, in his movements. He came on in great leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde:

At other seasons temperate, or some thought That like an adder creeps from point to point, That like a madman crawls from cell to cell, Poisons my palate and makes appetite A loathing, not a longing. [Goes aside.]

GUIDO. Sweet Bianca, This common chapman wearies me with words. I must go hence. To-morrow I will come. Tell me the hour.

BIANCA. Come with the youngest dawn!