Today's Stichomancy for Enrico Fermi

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad:

fear which benumbed the hearts of white men at the sight of his swift piratical praus. And these muttered statements of her grandfather's might were mixed up with bits of later recollections, where the great fight with the "White Devil's" brig and the convent life in Samarang occupied the principal place. At that point she usually dropped the thread of her narrative, and pulling out the little brass cross, always suspended round her neck, she contemplated it with superstitious awe. That superstitious feeling connected with some vague talismanic properties of the little bit of metal, and the still more hazy but terrible notion of some bad Djinns and horrible

Almayer's Folly

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare:

With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish, So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.

'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes, To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds. Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise? For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds; His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds; Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity, Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.

'Such devils steal effects from lightless hell; For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

more and more wounded men. But to the little house of mercy came the small odds and ends in increasing numbers. Medical men were scarce, and badly overworked. There was talk, for a time, of sending a surgeon to the little house, but it came to nothing. La Panne was not far away, and all the surgeons they could get there were not too many.

So the little house went on much as before. Henri had moved to the mill. He was at work again, and one day, in the King's villa and quietly, because of many reasons, Henri, a very white and erect Henri, received a second medal, the highest for courage that could be given.

He did not teli Sara Lee.

But though he and the men who served under him worked hard, they could

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 Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

or they would eat me, and they are better than nothing; but of late they do not come so often, and I have not had a lizard for a long time. I shall eat though," he mumbled. "I shall eat now, for you cannot remain awake forever." He laughed, a cackling, dry laugh. "When you sleep, An-Tak will eat."

It was horrible. Bradley shuddered. For a long time each sat in silence. The Englishman could guess why the other made no sound--he awaited the moment that sleep should overcome his victim. In the long silence there was born upon Bradley's ears a faint, monotonous sound as of running water. He listened intently. It seemed to come from far beneath the floor.

Out of Time's Abyss