Today's Stichomancy for Ariel Sharon

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert:

disease without seeing or touching the afflicted person was clearly impossible, unless, indeed, the man Jesus called in the assistance of evil spirits.

The friends of Antipas and the men from Galilee nodded wisely, saying: "It is evident that he is aided by demons of some sort!"

Jacob, standing between their table and that of the priests, maintained a silence at once lofty and respectful.

Several voices exclaimed: "Prove his power to us!"

Jacob leaned over the priests' table, and said slowly, in a half- suppressed tone, as if awe-struck by his own words:

"Know ye not, then, that He is the Messiah?"

Herodias

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton:

myself can degrade you. We're on different levels."

"I'm on yours, whatever it is!"

He lifted his head and their gaze flowed together.

XIV

The great renewals take effect as imperceptibly as the first workings of spring. Glennard, though he felt himself brought nearer to his wife, was still, as it were, hardly within speaking distance. He was but laboriously acquiring the rudiments of their new medium of communication; and he had to grope for her through the dense fog of his humiliation, the distorting vapor against which his personality loomed grotesque and mean.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon:

monuments of art that religions have inspired, what would remain of the great dreams of humanity? To give to men that portion of hope and illusion without which they cannot live, such is the reason for the existence of gods, heroes, and poets. During fifty years science appeared to undertake this task. But science has been compromised in hearts hungering after the ideal, because it does not dare to be lavish enough of promises, because it cannot lie."[14]

[14] Daniel Lesueur.

The philosophers of the last century devoted themselves with fervour to the destruction of the religious, political, and

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 Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis:

face, and threw it back. How thin and tired the little face had grown! Poor child! He put his strong arm kindly about her, and stooped to kiss her hand, but she drew it away. God! what did she do that for? Did not she know that he could put his head beneath her foot then, he was so mad with pity for the woman he had wronged? Not love, he thought, controlling himself,--it was only justice to be kind to her.

"You have been ill, Margret, these two years, while I was gone?"

He could not hear her answer; only saw that she looked up with a white, pitiful smile. Only a word it needed, he thought,--very kind and firm: and he must be quick,--he could not bear this

Margret Howth: A Story of To-day