Today's Stichomancy for J. Edgar Hoover

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton:

Strefford, on entering, had glanced about the dreary room, with its piano laden with tattered music, the children's toys littering the lame sofa, the bunches of dyed grass and impaled butterflies flanking the cast-bronze clock. Then he had turned to Susy and asked simply: "Why on earth are you here?"

She had not tried to explain; from the first, she had understood the impossibility of doing so. And she would not betray her secret longing to return to Nick, now that she knew that Nick had taken definite steps for his release. In dread lest Strefford should have heard of this, and should announce it to her, coupling it with the news of Nick's projected marriage, and

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland:

curtains, were kneeling to the right.

After we had seen the various customs without, I was taken into the dining-room, where I sat down with the young Princess and her two aunts, daughters of the Dowager. They were very kind and polite, and did all in their power to make me feel at home. We were attended by white-robed eunuchs, who knelt when they spoke to the Princess. There was such a lot of them.

"How many servants do you use ordinarily?" I asked the eldest daughter.

"About four hundred," she replied.

I thought of the task of robing four hundred servants in new

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

Job 14: 19 The waters wear the stones; the overflowings thereof wash away the dust of the earth; so Thou destroyest the hope of man.

Job 14: 20 Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth; Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.

Job 14: 21 His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he regardeth them not.

Job 14: 22 But his flesh grieveth for him, and his soul mourneth over him.

Job 15: 1 Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said:

Job 15: 2 Should a wise man make answer with windy knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?

Job 15: 3 Should he reason with unprofitable talk, or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?

Job 15: 4 Yea, thou doest away with fear, and impairest devotion before God.

Job 15: 5 For thine iniquity teacheth thy mouth, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.

Job 15: 6 Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I; yea, thine own lips testify against thee.

Job 15: 7 Art thou the first man that was born? Or wast thou brought forth before the hills?

The Tanach

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 Lin McLean by Owen Wister:

for he was a bachelor, and there were fifteen upon his list, which he held up for the edification of the hasty McLean. "Not mine, I'm happy to say. My friends keep marrying and settling, and their kids call me uncle, and climb around and bother, and I forget their names, and think it's a girl, and the mother gets mad. Why, if I didn't remember these little folks at Christmas they'd be wondering--not the kids, they just break your toys and don't notice; but the mother would wonder--'What's the matter with Dr. Barker? Has Governor Barker gone back on us?'--that's where the strain comes!" he broke off, facing Mr. McLean with another spacious laugh.

But the cow-puncher had ceased to smile, and now, while Barker ran on