Today's Stichomancy for Yasser Arafat

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

publicly gave him preference over them all.

"Decidedly, M. de Montriveau is the man for whom the Duchess shows a preference," pronounced Mme de Serizy.

And who in Paris does not know what it means when a woman "shows a preference?" All went on therefore according to prescribed rule. The anecdotes which people were pleased to circulate concerning the General put that warrior in so formidable a light, that the more adroit quietly dropped their pretensions to the Duchess, and remained in her train merely to turn the position to account, and to use her name and personality to make better terms for themselves with certain stars of the second magnitude. And

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske:

if Jeanne d'Arc had really survived, we should find no further mention of her than such as haply occurs in one or two town-records and dilapidated account-books. If she was alive in 1436, and corresponding with the King, some of her friends at court must have got an inkling of the true state of things. Why did they not parade their knowledge, to the manifest discomfiture of La Tremouille and his company? Or why did not Pierre du Lis cause it to be proclaimed that the English were liars, his sister being safely housed in Metz?

In the mere interests of historical criticism, we have said all that we could in behalf of Mr. Delepierre's hypothesis. But as to

The Unseen World and Other Essays

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini:

claret is rinsed as before, but the beer glass not rinsed at all, but is still moist with the white-wine vinegar, and the first strength of the Brazil water being lost, it makes the water which he vomits up to be of a more pale colour, and much like our English beer.

He then brings his rouse again, and drinks up fifteen or sixteen glasses of luke-warm water, which the pail will plentifully afford him: he will not bring

Miracle Mongers and Their Methods

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 Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy:

"I must tell you something," she said. "I wonder if you have suspected it. I have only been mistress of a large house and fortune a little while."

"Oh--only a little while?" murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her countenance slightly falling.

"As a girl I lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere with my father, till I was quite flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in the army. I should not have mentioned this had I not thought it best you should know the truth."

"Yes, yes." She looked thoughtfully round the room--at the little square piano with brass inlayings, at the window-

The Mayor of Casterbridge