Today's Stichomancy for Jerry Seinfeld

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James:

spot. He had now no scruple about giving her time to arrive, but she didn't arrive, and when he went away still missing her he was profanely and consentingly sorry. If her absence made the tangle more intricate, that was all her own doing. By the end of another year it was very intricate indeed; but by that time he didn't in the least care, and it was only his cultivated consciousness that had given him scruples. Three times in three months he had gone to church without finding her, and he felt he hadn't needed these occasions to show him his suspense had dropped. Yet it was, incongruously, not indifference, but a refinement of delicacy that had kept him from asking the sacristan, who would of course

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain, But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again. Get hence, the hearse is at your door -- the grim black stallions wait -- They bear your clay to place to-day. Speed, lest ye come too late! Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed -- go back with an open eye, And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one -- And. . .the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!"

Verses 1889-1896

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis:

know, before this big war, that made it fashionable.

But the blouses went out, and the buttermilk stayed in.

It seems there's a Bulgarian by the name of Metchnikoff in Paris who sits down and designs these things -- the buttermilk, you know, not the blouses.

Isn't science wonderful -- simply WONDERFUL!

We're going to take up Metchnikoff in a serious way. You know what he aims to do is to lengthen life.

The question is: "Should life be lengthened?

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 Hiero by Xenophon:

citizens in common, as opposed to the personal character of war as conducted by a despot = "public," "patriotic," "national" war. Al. borne by the particular {polis} as member of a league, whether of states united for the time being in a {summakhia}, or permanently in a confederacy = a "federal" war.

[6] "Even if serving on a campaign in the enemy's country."

[7] Or, "he has to exercise the utmost vigilance."

[8] "With those who are 'absolutely governed,' not to say tyrannically ruled."

[9] Or, "which the tyrant may accept in faith and go his way rejoicing."