Today's Stichomancy for George W. Bush

must we not die?" And then--I wandered on, musing on the doubtful future, on my blighted hopes. Gnawed by these gloomy thoughts, I turned mechanically into the convent church, with the gray towers that loomed like ghosts though the sea mists. I looked round with no kindling of the imagination at the forest of columns, at the slender arches set aloft upon the leafy capitals, a delicate labyrinth of sculpture. I walked with careless eyes along the side aisles that opened out before me like vast portals, ever turning upon their hinges. It was scarcely possible to see, by the dim light of the autumn day, the sculptured groinings of the roof, the delicate and clean-cut lines of the mouldings of the graceful pointed arches. The

snow, and sledges, by far the most comfortable method of travel in Siberia, could not be used. The rest of the journey, but one hundred and ninety- six versts, must be made by land. Rezanov admit- ted that he was too weary to ride, and refused to travel in the post carriage. On the third day the servant managed to hire a telega from a superior farmer and they started immediately, the heavy lug- gage having been consigned to a merchant vessel at Yakutsk.

Rezanov stood the telega exactly half a day.

Rezanov

for liking the Germans better than they do the English. They found the Germans agreeable, the English not agreeable. Well, this amounts to something as far as it goes: but how far does it go, and how much does it amount to? Have you ever seen an automobile painted up to look like new, and it broke down before it had run ten miles, and you found its insides were wrong? Would you buy an automobile on the strength of the paint? England often needs paint, but her insides are all right. If our soldiers look no deeper than the paint, if our voters look no further than the paint, if our democracy never looks at anything but the paint, God help our democracy! Of course the Germans were agreeable to our soldiers after the armistice!