Today's Stichomancy for Isaac Asimov

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain:

and now the TRIBUNE has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest of thirty years ago. Apparently mental telegraphy is still in business. It is odd; but the freaks of mental telegraphy are usually odd.

***

A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN

[The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from him, we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark Twain.-- Editor.]

TO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:

Dear Sir and Kinsman,--Let us have done with this frivolous talk. The American Board accepts contributions from me every year:

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln:

nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not 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.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare:

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou, shrieking harbinger, Foul pre-currer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king: Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can,

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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;

And that opinion I approve as best Which doth account it least; and he who thinks Of something else may truly be called just.

I saw the daughter of Latona shining Without that shadow, which to me was cause That once I had believed her rare and dense.

The aspect of thy son, Hyperion, Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves Around and near him Maia and Dione.

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)