Today's Stichomancy for Meyer Lansky

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

By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What i tell you three times is true."

The crew was complete: it included a Boots-- A maker of Bonnets and Hoods-- A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes-- And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-maker, whose skill was immense, Might perhaps have won more than his share--

The Hunting of the Snark

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac:

"Let us tell Max!"

Max soon heard of it. The royalist officers were still at their game of dominos when that hero entered the cafe, accompanied by Major Potel and Captain Renard, and followed by at least thirty young men, curious to see the end of the affair, most of whom remained outside in the street. The room was soon full.

"Waiter, MY newspaper," said Max, in a quiet voice.

Then a little comedy was played. The fat hostess, with a timid and conciliatory air, said, "Captain, I have lent it!"

"Send for it," cried one of Max's friends.

"Can't you do without it?" said the waiter; "we have not got it."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde:

The man is but a very honest knave Full of fine phrases for life's merchandise, Selling most dear what he must hold most cheap, A windy brawler in a world of words. I never met so eloquent a fool.

BIANCA. Oh, would that Death might take him where he stands!

SIMONE [turning round]. Who spake of Death? Let no one speak of Death. What should Death do in such a merry house, With but a wife, a husband, and a friend To give it greeting? Let Death go to houses

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 Philebus by Plato:

find a difficulty in following him into the sphere of thought which he is seeking to attain. First in his scale of goods he places measure, in which he finds the eternal nature: this would be more naturally expressed in modern language as eternal law, and seems to be akin both to the finite and to the mind or cause, which were two of the elements in the former table. Like the supreme nature in the Timaeus, like the ideal beauty in the Symposium or the Phaedrus, or like the ideal good in the Republic, this is the absolute and unapproachable being. But this being is manifested in symmetry and beauty everywhere, in the order of nature and of mind, in the relations of men to one another. For the word 'measure' he now substitutes the word 'symmetry,' as if intending to express measure conceived as