Today's Stichomancy for George S. Patton

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Than sail forever in the dark.

But if there be a soul on earth So blinded with its own misuse Of man's revealed, incessant worth, Or worn with anguish, that it views

No light but for a mortal eye, No rest but of a mortal sleep, No God but in a prophet's lie, No faith for "honest doubt" to keep;

If there be nothing, good or bad, But chaos for a soul to trust, --

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James:

"Of course I care to know!" Daisy exclaimed seriously. "But I don't believe it. They are only pretending to be shocked. They don't really care a straw what I do. Besides, I don't go round so much."

"I think you will find they do care. They will show it disagreeably."

Daisy looked at him a moment. "How disagreeably?"

"Haven't you noticed anything?" Winterbourne asked.

"I have noticed you. But I noticed you were as stiff as an umbrella the first time I saw you."

"You will find I am not so stiff as several others," said Winterbourne, smiling.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche:

prevailing morality, a new means of its EXPRESSION, consequently just a matter-of-fact within the sphere of a definite morality, yea, in its ultimate motive, a sort of denial that it is LAWFUL for this morality to be called in question--and in any case the reverse of the testing, analyzing, doubting, and vivisecting of this very faith. Hear, for instance, with what innocence--almost worthy of honour--Schopenhauer represents his own task, and draw your conclusions concerning the scientificness of a "Science" whose latest master still talks in the strain of children and old wives: "The principle," he says (page 136 of the Grundprobleme der Ethik), [Footnote: Pages 54-55 of Schopenhauer's Basis of

Beyond Good and Evil

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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. In this matter of Hester Prynne there was neither irritation nor irksomeness. She never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it in requital for what she suffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies. Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy was reckoned

The Scarlet Letter