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 Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis:

"Business?" she gasped. "Oh, I see! Settlements. We don't have such things in the States. But I quite understand all those European social traits. I have lived abroad for years. I----"

"Who is Miss Dunbar's guardian?" the prince demanded alertly. He sat down by the table and took out a notebook and papers.

"But--settlements? Is not that a little premature?" she ventured. "She has not accepted you."

"HE may not accept my financial proposals. It is business, you see. The gentle ladies, even die

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister:

Grandmother Stark in her frame, rosy, blue, and flaxen, not quite familiar, not quite smiling.

XXVIII. NO DREAM TO WAKE FROM

For a long while after she had left him, he lay still, stretched in his chair. His eyes were fixed steadily upon the open window and the sunshine outside. There he watched the movement of the leaves upon the green cottonwoods. What had she said to him when she went? She had said, "Now I know how unhappy I have been." These sweet words he repeated to himself over and over, fearing in some way that he might lose them. They almost slipped from him at times; but with a jump of his mind he caught them again and

The Virginian

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Some fraction farther on our way.

The dumb lands sleep from east to west, They stretch and turn and take their rest. The cock has crown in the steading-yard, But priest and people slumber hard.

We two are early forth, and hear The nations snoring far and near. So peacefully their rest they take, It seems we are the first awake!

- Strong heart! this is no royal way, A thousand cross-roads seek the day;

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 In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth:

life became one of the most wretched in the place. Her husband made no pretence of caring for her, and when she was ill and unable to earn money by selling fish in the streets, he would go off for a few months, leaving her to keep the house and support herself and babies as best she could. Out of her twenty years of married life, ten were spent in these on-and-off separations. And so she got to live for only one thing--drink. It was life to her; and the mad craving grew to be irresistible. The woman who looked after her at the birth of her child refused to fetch her whisky, so when she had done all she could and left the mother to rest, Barbara crept out of bed and crawled slowly down the stairs over the way to the tap-room, where she sat drinking

In Darkest England and The Way Out