Today's Stichomancy for Theodore Roosevelt

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde:

imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias?' He would probably have answered that he had contemplated none of these things, but had concerned himself simply with certain arrangements of lines and masses, and with new and curious colour- harmonies of blue and green. And it is for this very reason that the criticism which I have quoted is criticism of the highest kind. It treats the work of art simply as a starting-point for a new creation. It does not confine itself - let us at least suppose so for the moment - to discovering the real intention of the artist and accepting that as final. And in this it is right, for the meaning of any beautiful created thing is, at least, as much in the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare:

To have his head. He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy, Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin In such a loathed manner; And therefore instantly this prince must die; For by his fall my honour must keep high. Who attends us there?

[Enter Thaliard.]

THALIARD. Doth your highness call?

ANTIOCHUS.

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

members, easily dominated by the will of one, is far more susceptible of continuous resolution--that is, of perseverance in a settled line of conduct.

The Government of the Directory proved to be always incapable of governing, but it never lacked a strong will. Nothing restraining it, neither respect for law nor consideration for the citizens, nor love of the public welfare, it was able to impose upon France a despotism more crushing than that of any Government since the beginning of the Revolution, not excepting the Terror.

Although it utilised methods analogous to those of the Convention, and ruled France in the most tyrannical manner, the

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 The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

with these as the polling approached. To begin with I made a real attempt to put what was in my mind before the people I was to supply with a political voice. I spoke of the greatness of our empire and its destinies, of the splendid projects and possibilities of life and order that lay before the world, of all that a resolute and constructive effort might do at the present time. "We are building a state," I said, "secure and splendid, we are in the dawn of the great age of mankind." Sometimes that would get a solitary "'Ear! 'ear!" Then having created, as I imagined, a fine atmosphere, I turned upon the history of the last Conservative administration and brought it into contrast with the wide occasions of the age;