Today's Stichomancy for L. Ron Hubbard

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay:

before the Democratic convention met, the tide of battle had turned. The darkest hour of the war had passed, and dawn was at hand, and amid the thanksgivings of a grateful people, and the joyful salute of great guns, the real presidential campaign began. The country awoke to the true meaning of the Democratic platform; General Sherman's successes in the South excited the enthusiasm of the people; and when at last the Unionists, rousing from their midsummer languor, began to show their faith in the Republican candidate, the hopelessness of all efforts to undermine him became evident.

XII. THE CONQUEROR OF A GREAT REBELLION

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

poor fellows into the hands of their comrades. They then turned back and fought in the front ranks.

They killed Pylaemenes peer of Mars, leader of the Paphlagonian warriors. Menelaus struck him on the collar-bone as he was standing on his chariot, while Antilochus hit his charioteer and squire Mydon, the son of Atymnius, who was turning his horses in flight. He hit him with a stone upon the elbow, and the reins, enriched with white ivory, fell from his hands into the dust. Antilochus rushed towards him and struck him on the temples with his sword, whereon he fell head first from the chariot to the ground. There he stood for a while with his head and shoulders

The Iliad

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac:

things alarmed her; she felt that a secret struggle was about to take place between them, and that he meant to employ against her all the powers of his evil influence. But though she had at this moment a full and distinct view of the gulf into which she was plunging, she gathered strength from her love to shake off the icy chill of these presentiments.

"Corentin," she said, with a sort of gayety, "I hope you are going to let me make my toilet?"

"Marie," he said,--"yes, permit me to call you so,--you don't yet know me. Listen; a much less sagacious man than I would see your love for the Marquis de Montauran. I have several times offered you my heart

The Chouans

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 Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac:

took pleasure in experimentalising how far the virtue of her eyes would go, and after having heated her slave more than thirty times, she was confirmed in her belief that he would bravely die for her. This idea so touched her, that from three repetitions between her orisons she was tickled with the desire to put into a lump all the joys of man, and to dissolve them for him in one single glance of love, in order that she should not one day be reproached with having not only dissipated the life, but also the happiness of this gentleman. When the officiating priest turned round to sing the Off you go to this fine gilded flock, the constable's wife went out by the side of the pillar where her courtier was, passed in front of him and

Droll Stories, V. 1