Today's Stichomancy for Enrico Fermi

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

criminal, and his story an insult to their intelligence. Therefore, without further questioning, they decided to order his immediate execution, -- all of them except one, a very old man. This aged officer had made no remark during the trial; but, after having heard the opinion of his colleagues, he rose up, and said: --

"Let us first examine the head carefully; for this, I think, has not yet been done. If the priest has spoken truth, the head itself should bear witness for him... Bring the head here!"

So the head, still holding in its teeth the koromo that had been stripped from Kwairyo's shoulders, was put before the judges. The old man turned it round and round, carefully examined it, and discovered, on the nape of its

Kwaidan

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

saluted again.

I dismissed him with a few kind words, for I knew that it was through no fault of his that the mechanism was antiquated and worthless, in common with the balance of the Coldwater's equipment. There was no finer operator in Pan- America than he.

The failure of the wireless did not appear as momentous to me as to him, which is not unnatural, since it is but human to feel that when our own little cog slips, the entire universe must necessarily be put out of gear. I knew that if this storm were destined to blow us across thirty, or

Lost Continent

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon:

Lyc. But whence, then?

Soc. Theognis has told us:

From the good thou shalt learn good things, but if with the evil Thou holdest converse, thou shalt lose the wit that is in thee.[9]

[9] Theog. 35 foll. See "Mem." I. ii. 20; Plat. "Men." 95 D.

Lyc. (turning to his son). Do you hear that, my son?

That he does (Socrates answered for the boy), and he puts the precept into practice also; to judge, at any rate, from his behaviour. When he had set his heart on carrying off the palm of victory in the pankration, he took you into his counsel;[10] and will again take counsel to discover the fittest friend to aid him in his high

The Symposium

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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James:

question, met in a silence, the dawn deepened, and something to his purpose came prodigiously out of her very face. His own, as he took it in, suddenly flushed to the forehead, and he gasped with the force of a perception to which, on the instant, everything fitted. The sound of his gasp filled the air; then he became articulate. "I see--if I don't suffer!"

In her own look, however, was doubt. "You see what?"

"Why what you mean--what you've always meant."

She again shook her head. "What I mean isn't what I've always meant. It's different."

"It's something new?"