Today's Stichomancy for Niels Bohr

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

Therefore if I have been among that folk Which mourns its avarice, to purify me, For its opposite has this befallen me."

"Now when thou sangest the relentless weapons Of the twofold affliction of Jocasta," The singer of the Songs Bucolic said,

"From that which Clio there with thee preludes, It does not seem that yet had made thee faithful That faith without which no good works suffice.

If this be so, what candles or what sun Scattered thy darkness so that thou didst trim

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie:

threateningly aloft like a hook.

Instead of watching the ship, however, we must now return to that desolate home from which three of our characters had taken heartless flight so long ago. It seems a shame to have neglected No. 14 all this time; and yet we may be sure that Mrs. Darling does not blame us. If we had returned sooner to look with sorrowful sympathy at her, she would probably have cried, "Don't be silly; what do I matter? Do go back and keep an eye on the children." So long as mothers are like this their children will take advantage of them; and they may lay to [bet on] that.

Even now we venture into that familiar nursery only because its

Peter Pan

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome:

some time early in the seventeenth century.

Pavlovitch is a little, fat, spectacled man with a bald head, fringed with the remains of red hair, and a little reddish beard. He was dressed in a black leather coat and trousers. He complained bitterly that all his plans for engineering works to improve the productive possibilities of the country were made impracticable by the imperious demands of war. As an old Siberian exile he had been living in France before the revolution and, as he said, had seen there how France made war. "They sent her locomotives, and rails for the locomotives to run on, everything she needed they sent her

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 Desert Gold by Zane Grey:

now."

"Eat your breakfast. There's plenty of time to dazzle you afterward."

Thorne fell to upon his breakfast and made it vanish with magic speed. Meanwhile Dick told him something of a ranger's life along the border.

"You needn't waste your breath," said Thorne. "I guess I can see. Belding and those rangers have made you the real thing--the real Western goods....What I want to know is all about the girl."

"Well, Laddy swears she's got your girl roped in the corral for looks."

"That's not possible. I'll have to talk to Laddy....But she must be a wonder, or Dick Gale would never have fallen for her....Isn't it

Desert Gold