Today's Stichomancy for John Dillinger

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

by reason, but most often in spite of it, that are created those sentiments that are the mainsprings of all civilisation--sentiments such as honour, self- sacrifice, religious faith, patriotism, and the love of glory.

CHAPTER III

THE LEADERS OF CROWDS AND THEIR MEANS OF PERSUASION

1. THE LEADERS OF CROWDS. The instinctive need of all beings forming a crowd to obey a leader--The psychology of the leaders of crowds--They alone can endow crowds with faith and organise them--The leaders forcibly despotic--Classification of the leaders--The part played by the will. 2. THE MEANS OF

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac:

be. After pointing to the singular sentinel, the most jovial, as he seemed, of the apprentices retired and came back holding an instrument whose hard metal pipe is now superseded by a leather tube; and they all grinned with mischief as they looked down on the loiterer, and sprinkled him with a fine white shower of which the scent proved that three chins had just been shaved. Standing on tiptoe, in the farthest corner of their loft, to enjoy their victim's rage, the lads ceased laughing on seeing the haughty indifference with which the young man shook his cloak, and the intense contempt expressed by his face as he glanced up at the empty window-frame.

At this moment a slender white hand threw up the lower half of one of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy:

crisis of his life arrived, and he married. His introduction to the lady whom fate ordained to become his wife is not the least singular episode in a remarkable biography. Being at Tunbridge Wells, then a place of fashion and liberty, he was one day walking with a friend named Fairbeard. And it happened as they were passing a book-stall they overheard a gentlewoman inquire for the "Plain Dealer."

"Madam," says Mr. Fairbeard, uncovering, "since you are for the 'Plain Dealer,' there he is for you;" whereon he led Wycherley towards her.

"This lady," says that gentleman, making her a profound bow, "can

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 Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain:

Mount Sinai three hundred miles an hour. You won't have lost more than an hour. You'll start back at 7 or 8 A.M., village time, and be here in 24 hours, arriving at 2 or 3 P.M., Mount Sinai time."

Tom he read the piece of paper to us. He had wrote on it:

"THURSDAY AFTERNOON. Tom Sawyer the Erro- nort sends his love to Aunt Polly from Mount Sinai where the Ark was, and so does Huck Finn, and she will get it to-morrow morning half-past six." *

[* This misplacing of the Ark is probably Huck's