Today's Stichomancy for Franklin Roosevelt

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft:

of his power and luxury and freedom for one blessed day as a simple boy in that pure and quiet England, that ancient, beloved England which had moulded his being and of which he must always be immutably a part. So when Carter bade that old grey chief of the cats adieu, he did not seek the terraced palace of rose crystal but walked out the eastern gate and across the daisied fields toward a peaked gable which he glimpsed through the oaks of a park sloping up to the sea-cliffs. And in time he came to a great hedge and a gate with a little brick lodge, and when he rang the bell there hobbled to admit him no robed and annointed lackey of the palace,

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson:

the heat of a moment, is madder than madness, and can help nothing. I am not speaking like a man, but I speak the truth; and I tell you again, the thing's absurd, and wrong, and hurtful.'

She looked at him with a lowering, languid look of wrath.

'So you will not take me?' she said. 'Well, I will go alone.'

And she began to step forward on her way. But he threw himself before her.

'Esther, Esther!' he cried.

'Let me go - don't touch me - what right have you to

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard:

each of them was willing to die that the other might go free. Therefore, both of them stepped forward, saying that they would fight the Zulu.

"What, is there honour among pigs?" said Chaka. "Then I will settle it. See this assegai? I throw it into the air; if the blade falls uppermost the tall man shall go free; if the shaft falls uppermost, then life is to the short one, so!" And he sent the little spear whirling round and round in the air. Every eye watched it as it wheeled and fell. The haft struck the ground first.

"Come hither, thou," said Chaka to the tall brother. "Hasten back to the kraal of Makedama, and say to him, Thus says Chaka, the Lion of

Nada the Lily

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 Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:

With agate, porphory, onyx and jade;

The tissues that veiled her delicate breast, Glowed with the hues of a lapwing's crest;

But still she gazed in her mirror and sighed "O King, my heart is unsatisfied."

King Feroz bent from his ebony seat: "Is thy least desire unfulfilled, O Sweet?

"Let thy mouth speak and my life be spent To clear the sky of thy discontent."

"I tire of my beauty, I tire of this Empty splendour and shadowless bliss;