Today's Stichomancy for Alan Greenspan

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon:

The Cavalry General 1 The Apology 1 On Revenues 1 The Hiero 1 The Agesilaus 1 The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians 2

Text in brackets "{}" is my transliteration of Greek text into English using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table. The diacritical marks have been lost.

Hiero

by Xenophon

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King James Bible:

judgment.

JOH 7:25 Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he, whom they seek to kill?

JOH 7:26 But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?

JOH 7:27 Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.

JOH 7:28 Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.

JOH 7:29 But I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent me.

King James Bible

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy:

"Soo!" he said (this being the way in which he pronounced her name).

She was not in the bed, though she had apparently been there-- the clothes on her side being flung back. Thinking she might have forgotten some kitchen detail and gone downstairs for a moment to see to it, he pulled off his coat and idled quietly enough for a few minutes, when, finding she did not come, he went out upon the landing, candle in hand, and said again "Soo!"

"Yes!" came back to him in her voice, from the distant kitchen quarter.

"What are you doing down there at midnight--tiring yourself out for nothing!"

"I am not sleepy; I am reading; and there is a larger fire here."

Jude the Obscure

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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac:

wages and the rent and taxes; so that David himself was scarcely making twelve hundred francs per annum. Active and industrious men of business would have bought new type and new machinery, and made an effort to secure orders for cheap printing from the Paris book trade; but master and foreman, deep in absorbing intellectual interests, were quite content with such orders as came to them from their remaining customers.

In the long length the Cointets had come to understand David's character and habits. They did not slander him now; on the contrary, wise policy required that they should allow the business to flicker on; it was to their interest indeed to maintain it in a small way,