Today's Stichomancy for Benjamin Franklin

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

Hardens each wallowing shoulder to the wound. What of the youth, when love's relentless might Stirs the fierce fire within his veins? Behold! In blindest midnight how he swims the gulf Convulsed with bursting storm-clouds! Over him Heaven's huge gate thunders; the rock-shattered main Utters a warning cry; nor parents' tears Can backward call him, nor the maid he loves, Too soon to die on his untimely pyre. What of the spotted ounce to Bacchus dear, Or warlike wolf-kin or the breed of dogs?

Georgics

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde:

conservatives raised such outcry against the slightest innovation. Even acknowledged improvements in such things as the games of children or the modes of music were regarded by them with feelings of extreme apprehension as the herald of the DRAPEAU ROUGE of reform. And secondly, it will show us how it was that Polybius found his ideal in the commonwealth of Rome, and Aristotle, like Mr. Bright, in the middle classes. Polybius, however, is not content merely with pointing out his ideal state, but enters at considerable length into the question of those general laws whose consideration forms the chief essential of the philosophy of history.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic:

about the stained-glass likeness. The music had sunk away now into fragmentary and unconnected passages, broken here and there by abrupt stops. Dr. Ledsmar stretched an arm out past him and shut the window. "Let's hear as little of the row as we can," he said, and the two went back to their chairs.

"Pardon me for the question," the Rev. Mr. Ware said, after a pause which began to affect him as constrained, "but something you said about dining--you don't live here, then? In the house, I mean?"

The doctor laughed--a characteristically abrupt,

The Damnation of Theron Ware

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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

And if the world below would fix its mind On the foundation which is laid by nature, Pursuing that, 'twould have the people good.

But you unto religion wrench aside Him who was born to gird him with the sword, And make a king of him who is for sermons;

Therefore your footsteps wander from the road."

Paradiso: Canto IX

Beautiful Clemence, after that thy Charles Had me enlightened, he narrated to me The treacheries his seed should undergo;

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)