Today's Stichomancy for Osama bin Laden

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare:

Rom. It was the Larke the Herauld of the Morne: No Nightingale: looke Loue what enuious streakes Do lace the seuering Cloudes in yonder East: Nights Candles are burnt out, and Iocond day Stands tipto on the mistie Mountaines tops, I must be gone and liue, or stay and die

Iul. Yond light is not daylight, I know it I: It is some Meteor that the Sun exhales, To be to thee this night a Torch-bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua. Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not be gone,

Romeo and Juliet

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum:

snow that he could not see the trees as they whirled past. Up hill and down dale, swift as an arrow shot from a bow they dashed, and Claus shut his eyes to keep the wind out of them and left the deer to find their own way.

It seemed to him they were plunging through space, but he was not at all afraid. The Knooks were severe masters, and must be obeyed at all hazards, and the gray streak in the sky was growing brighter every moment.

Finally the sledge came to a sudden stop and Claus, who was taken unawares, tumbled from his seat into a snowdrift. As he picked himself up he heard the deer crying:

"Quick, friend, quick! Cut away our harness!"

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato:

charging your father with murder.

EUTHYPHRO: And what I said was true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: No doubt, Euthyphro; but you would admit that there are many other pious acts?

EUTHYPHRO: There are.

SOCRATES: Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious, and the pious pious?

EUTHYPHRO: I remember.

SOCRATES: Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a

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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac:

sadness and her tears was the thought that, on the morrow of her death, he and Marie would be left almost resourceless, with but a slender stock of money, and no friend but God.

"How quick I must be about learning!" cried Louis, giving her a piteous, searching look.

"Oh! how happy I am!" she said, showering kisses and tears on her son. "He understands me!--Louis," she went on, "you will be your brother's guardian, will you not? You promise me that? You are no longer a child!"

"Yes, I promise," he said; "but you are not going to die yet--say that you are not going to die!"