Today's Stichomancy for Donald Rumsfeld

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot:

their craft and to their own nerve. Bearing in mind the vulnerability of the average aeroplane, and the general absence of protective armouring against rifle fire at almost point-blank range, it shows the important part which the human element is compelled to play in bomb-dropping operations.

Another missile which has been introduced by the French airmen, and which is extremely deadly when hurled against dense masses of men, is the steel arrow, or "flechette" as it is called. It is a fiendish projectile consisting in reality of a pencil of solid polished steel, 4 3/4 inches in length. The lower end has a sharp tapering point, 5/8ths of an inch in length. For a

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac:

short, all the confusion and vacancies resulting from plans for order never carried out. The lawyer's private room, especially disordered by this incessant rummage, bore witness to his unresting pace, the hurry of a man overwhelmed with business, hunted by contradictory necessities. The bookcase looked as if it had been sacked; there were books scattered over everything, some piled up open, one on another, others on the floor face downwards; registers of proceedings laid on the floor in rows, lengthwise, in front of the shelves; and that floor had not been polished for two years.

The tables and shelves were covered with ex votos, the offerings of the grateful poor. On a pair of blue glass jars which ornamented the

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

punish me! He will henceforth share my room----

"Do not forget to settle the twelve hundred francs a year on the little one!"

Hulot, seeing his pleasures in danger, took Monsieur Marneffe aside, and for the first time derogated from the haughty tone he had always assumed towards him, so greatly was he horrified by the thought of that half-dead creature in his pretty young wife's bedroom.

"Marneffe, my dear fellow," said he, "I have been talking of you to-day. But you cannot be promoted to the first class just yet. We must have time."

"I will be, Monsieur le Baron," said Marneffe shortly.

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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Brodie's, nested some way towards heaven in one of these great LANDS, had told him of a projected visit to the country, and afterwards, detained by some affairs, put it off and stayed the night in town. The good man had lain some time awake; it was far on in the small hours by the Tron bell; when suddenly there came a creak, a jar, a faint light. Softly he clambered out of bed and up to a false window which looked upon another room, and there, by the glimmer of a thieves' lantern, was his good friend the Deacon in a mask. It is characteristic of the town and the town's manners that this little episode should