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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde:

Into a sign of sweet remembrances. But come before the lark with its shrill song Has waked a world of dreamers. I will stand Upon the balcony.

GUIDO. And by a ladder Wrought out of scarlet silk and sewn with pearls Will come to meet me. White foot after foot, Like snow upon a rose-tree.

BIANCA. As you will. You know that I am yours for love or Death.

GUIDO. Simone, I must go to mine own house.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad:

ner of a handkerchief which he carried in the cuff of his sleeve, Captain Hagberd went out. As soon as the door was shut the barber laughed. "The old one and the young one will be strolling arm in arm to get shaved in my place presently. The tailor shall be set to work, and the barber, and the candlestick maker; high old times are coming for Colebrook, they are coming, to be sure. It used to be 'next week,' now it has come to 'next month,' and so on--soon it will be next spring, for all I know."

To-morrow

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

prepare for war,[8] deep was the vexation depicted on the faces of the Lacedaemonians there present and their allies, as they realised that the scanty force of Agesilaus was all too small to cope with the armaments of Persia. But the brow of their general was lit with joy as gaily he bade the ambassadors take back this answer to Tissaphernes: "I hold myself indebted to your master for the perjury whereby he has obtained to himself the hostility of heaven, and made the gods themselves allies of Hellas." And so without further pause he published a general order to his soldiers to pack their baggage and prepare for active service; and to the several cities which lay on the line of march to Caria, the order sped to have their markets in

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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad:

ground rising abruptly behind the red roofs of the little town crowds the quaint High Street against the wall which defends it from the sea. Beyond the sea-wall there curves for miles in a vast and regular sweep the barren beach of shingle, with the village of Brenzett standing out darkly across the water, a spire in a clump of trees; and still further out the perpendicular column of a lighthouse, look- ing in the distance no bigger than a lead pencil, marks the vanishing-point of the land. The coun- try at the back of Brenzett is low and flat, but the

Amy Foster