Today's Stichomancy for Steve Jobs

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber:

story when I see it. Suppose you were traveling in Germany, and should come across a sign over a shop, saying: `Hier wird Deutsch gesprochen.' Wouldn't you think you were dreaming?"

Norberg waved an explanatory hand. "This isn't America. This is Milwaukee. After you've lived here a year or so you'll understand what I mean. If we should run a story of that sign, with a two-column cut, Milwaukee wouldn't even see the joke."

But it was not necessary that I live in Milwaukee a year or so in order to understand its peculiarities, for

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland:

Chinese physician for him, but the last man whose physician the Emperor would have accepted would have been Yuan Shih-kai's. Had you or I been ill would we have allowed the man who was the cause of our fall to select our physician? But granted that Yuan Shih-kai did employ his physician, and that his death was the result of slow poisoning, could Yuan Shih-kai have so manipulated Prince Ching, the Regent (who is the late Emperor's brother), the ladies of the court, and all those thousands of eunuchs, to remain silent as to the death of the Empress Dowager until he had completed the slow process on His Majesty? No! If the Emperor was poisoned--and the world believes he was--there are a number of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac:

she seemed as if she would tear Castanier in pieces.

"You know me too well to believe it," Castanier retorted. Aquilina was benumbed by his coolness.

"Then how do you know it?" she murmured.

"I did not know it until I went into the drawing-room; now I know it-- now I see and know all things, and can do all things."

The sergeant was overcome with amazement.

"Very well then, save him, save him, dear!" cried the girl, flinging herself at Castanier's feet. "If nothing is impossible to you, save him! I will love you, I will adore you, I will be your slave and not your mistress. I will obey your wildest whims; you shall do as you

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 Aeneid by Virgil:

To crush the pillars which the pile sustain. Sublime on these a tow'r of steel is rear'd; And dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward, Girt in her sanguine gown, by night and day, Observant of the souls that pass the downward way. From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains Of sounding lashes and of dragging chains. The Trojan stood astonish'd at their cries, And ask'd his guide from whence those yells arise; And what the crimes, and what the tortures were, And loud laments that rent the liquid air.

Aeneid