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 Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

design that was burned into the tile bore the telltale smudge.

Otherwise it differed apparently in no way from the numerous other round, white figures that were repeated many times in the scheme of decoration. Barney placed his thumb exactly over the mark that another thumb had left there and pushed. The figure sank into the panel beneath the pressure. Barney pushed harder, breathless with sus- pense. The panel swung in at his effort. The American could have whooped with delight.

A moment more and he stood upon the opposite side of the secret door in utter darkness, for he had quickly closed

The Mad King

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome:

Francis, the terror of counter-revolutionaries and criminals alike, is a very bad speaker. He looks into the air over the heads of his audience and talks as if he were not addressing them at all but some one else unseen. He talks even of a subject which he knows perfectly with curious inability to form his sentences; stops, changes words, and often, recognizing that he cannot finish his sentence, ends where he is, in the middle of it, with a little odd, deprecating emphasis, as if to say: "At this point there is a full stop. At least so it seems."

He gave a short colourless sketch of the history of the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower:

And drawth fortune of his assent: The name of queene Olimpias In thilke ymage write was Amiddes in the front above. And thus to winne his lust of love Nectanabus this werk hath diht; And whan it cam withinne nyht, 1970 That every wyht is falle aslepe, He thoghte he wolde his time kepe, As he which hath his houre apointed. And thanne ferst he hath enoignted

Confessio Amantis

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 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane:

Pete would shrug his shoulders and say: "Oh, ev'ryt'ing goes."

She anticipated that he would come again shortly. She spent some of her week's pay in the purchase of flowered cretonne for a lambrequin. She made it with infinite care and hung it to the slightly-careening mantel, over the stove, in the kitchen. She studied it with painful anxiety from different points in the room. She wanted it to look well on Sunday night when, perhaps, Jimmie's friend would come. On Sunday night, however, Pete did not appear.

Afterward the girl looked at it with a sense of humiliation. She was now convinced that Pete was superior to admiration for lambrequins.

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets