Today's Stichomancy for Karl Rove

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac:

your Society?" the cashier continued. "The Procureur-General has a list of your names. You have been betrayed. They are busy drawing up the indictment at this moment."

"Then was it you who betrayed him?" cried Aquilina, and with a hoarse sound in her throat like the growl of a tigress she rose to her feet; she seemed as if she would tear Castanier in pieces.

"You know me too well to believe it," Castanier retorted. Aquilina was benumbed by his coolness.

"Then how do you know it?" she murmured.

"I did not know it until I went into the drawing-room; now I know it-- now I see and know all things, and can do all things."

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw:

daresay shes got a young face; but shes an old woman. Old, old, old. Squeamish. Cant stand up to things. Cant enjoy things: not real things. Always on the shrink.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. On the shrink! Detestable expression.

HYPATIA. Bah! you cant stand even a little thing like that. What good are you? Oh, what good are you?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Dont ask me. I dont know. I dont know.

_Tarleton returns from the vestibule. Hypatia sits down demurely._

HYPATIA. Well, papa: have you meditated on your destiny?

TARLETON. _[puzzled]_ What? Oh! my destiny. Gad, I forgot all about it: Jock started a rabbit and put it clean out of my head.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso:

Mine aged lord, my father, and my king."

LXIV Thus talked they; meanwhile Godfredo went Down to the troops that in the valley stayed, And for in vain he thought the labor spent, To assail those parts that to the mountains laid, Against the northern gate his force he bent, Gainst it he camped, gainst it his engines played; All felt the fury of his angry power, That from those gates lies to the corner tower.

LXV

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 Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln:

back a second later carrying a glass of water, and I saw him take up and open a small box and toss some white pills into his mouth; then he took a good drink, and, picking up a handkerchief lying on the table, he went back into the library."

There was silence as Sylvester's callous recital of the tragedy ended. Helen, her eyes tearless and dark with suffering, sank slowly back in her chair and rested her head against Barbara's sympathetic shoulder.

"So Turnbull's death was accidental after all," exclaimed Ferguson. "Or was it suicide?"

"Accident," answered Kent. "I found some nitro-glycerine pills in

The Red Seal