Today's Stichomancy for Steve Martin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln:

the real ones you fly from--will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?

All profess to be content in the Union if all Constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written Constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution--certainly would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne:

with the demoiselle upon the landing of the staircase, during the time I was taken up with my passport; and as there was time enough for me to win the Count to my interest, La Fleur had contrived to make it do to win the maid to his. The family, it seems, was to be at Paris that day, and he had made a party with her, and two or three more of the Count's household, upon the boulevards.

Happy people! that once a week at least are sure to lay down all your cares together, and dance and sing and sport away the weights of grievance, which bow down the spirit of other nations to the earth.

THE FRAGMENT. PARIS.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

upon him I witnessed as pretty fighting as one might care to see. With their sharp hooks the combatants attempted to take hold of an adversary, but like lightning the cupshaped shield would spring before the darting weapon and into its hollow the hook would plunge. Once the lone warrior caught an antagonist in the side with his hook, and drawing him close ran his sword through him. But the odds were too unequal, and, though he who fought alone was by far the best and bravest of them all, I saw that it was

The Warlord of Mars

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 Apology by Xenophon:

that testimony will be borne to me also by time future and time past that I never wronged another at any time or ever made a worse man of him,[49] but ever tried to benefit those who practised discussion with me, teaching them gratuitously every good thing in my power."

[48] Cf. "Mem." IV. viii. 9, 10; ib. IV. ii. 3. See Plat. "Rep." v. 476 D, {exomen ti paramutheisthai auton}; and "Hunting," i. 11. The story of Palamedes is told by Ovid, "Met." xiii. 5.

[49] Cf. Plat. "Apol." 25 D, {poteron eme eisageis deuro os diaphtheironta tous neous kai poneroterous poiounta ekonta e akonta}.

Having so said he turned and went in a manner quite in conformity[50]

The Apology