Today's Stichomancy for Douglas MacArthur

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber:

don't want to be a shipping-clerk all his life. He's crazy about mechanics and that kind of stuff. But the books that he needs cost a lot. Don't you suppose I'd be proud to feel that the extra money I'd earned would lift him up where he could have a chance to be something! But Henry is dead set against it. He says he is the one that's going to earn the money around here. I try to tell him that I'm used to using my mind. He laughs and pinches my cheek and tells me to use it thinking about him." She stopped suddenly and regarded Emma with conscience-stricken eyes. "You don't think I'm running down Henry, do you? My goodness, I don't want you to think that I'd change back again

Emma McChesney & Co.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft:

agreed on the virtual identity of the phrase common to two hellish rituals so many worlds of distance apart. What, in substance, both the Esquimaux wizards and the Louisiana swamp-priests had chanted to their kindred idols was something very like this: the word-divisions being guessed at from traditional breaks in the phrase as chanted aloud: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." Legrasse had one point in advance of Professor Webb, for several among his mongrel prisoners had repeated to him what older celebrants had told them the words meant. This

Call of Cthulhu

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

The Cyropaedia 8 The Memorabilia 4 The Symposium 1 The Economist 1 On Horsemanship 1 The Sportsman 1 The Cavalry General 1 The Apology 1 On Revenues 1 The Hiero 1 The Agesilaus 1

The Apology

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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne:

from rusting. To speak the truth, he never could enter a village, but he caught the attention of both old and young.--Labour stood still as he pass'd--the bucket hung suspended in the middle of the well,--the spinning- wheel forgot its round,--even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight; and as his movement was not of the quickest, he had generally time enough upon his hands to make his observations,--to hear the groans of the serious,--and the laughter of the light-hearted; all which he bore with excellent tranquillity.--His character was,--he loved a jest in his heart--and as he saw himself in the true point of ridicule, he would say he could not be angry with others for seeing him in a light, in which he so strongly saw himself: So that to his