Today's Stichomancy for George W. Bush

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

girls. She always sat on a bench under the great magnoliatree and watched the tiny girls as they ate their tiny cakes.

And always the pink checked towel waved itself ever so softly to and fro on the lowest limb of the arbor-vitae-tree, for that was the way that pink checked towels did to help to dry themselves after helping to dry so many little pink fingers. Often, so often, little brown sparrows came hopping to the gravel to pick up any tiny crumbs of cake that the little girls dropped, but you may be sure that they did not drop so very many, many little brown crumbs for little brown birds to find.

But if they were dropped, even if by rare chance were the crumbs so

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

a volume of those feminine caresses which are given as much by the tones of the voice and by looks as by gestures. She presently reached Ginevra, under the influence of an uneasiness she tried in vain to disguise. They nodded to each other in a friendly way, but said nothing; one painted, the other stood looking at the painting. The breathing of the soldier in the closet could be distinctly heard, but Madame Servin appeared not to notice it; her feigned ignorance was so obvious that Ginevra recognized it at once for wilful deafness. Presently the unknown man turned on his pallet.

The Italian then looked fixedly at Madame Servin, who said, without the slightest change of face:--

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley:

that the things themselves are as a gun or a sword, with which we can kill our enemy, but with which also our enemy can kill us. Like all outward and material things, they are equally fit for good and for evil. In England here--they have been as yet, as far as I can see, nothing but blessings: but I have my very serious doubts whether they are likely to be blessings to the whole human race, for many an age to come. I can conceive them--may God avert the omen!-- the instruments of a more crushing executive centralisation, of a more utter oppression of the bodies and souls of men, than the world has yet seen. I can conceive--may God avert the omen!--centuries hence, some future world-ruler sitting at the junction of all

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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith:

face. He knew where Jennie was, but he never looked.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Tom, her thoughts far away at the moment.

"I don' know; he no eat da oats en da box."

"Will he drink?" said Tom, awakening to the importance of the information.

"Yas; 'mos' two buckets."

"It's fever he's got," she said, turning to Pop. "I thought that yisterday noon when I sees him a-workin'. All right, Carl; I'll be down before I go to the board meetin'. And see here, Carl; ye'd better git ready to go wid me. I'll start in a couple o'