Today's Stichomancy for Adolf Hitler

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

Who grapples with his hook the sinners yonder."

And the Friar: "Many of the Devil's vices Once heard I at Bologna, and among them, That he's a liar and the father of lies."

Thereat my Leader with great strides went on, Somewhat disturbed with anger in his looks; Whence from the heavy-laden I departed

After the prints of his beloved feet.

Inferno: Canto XXIV

In that part of the youthful year wherein The Sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers,

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

As if there weren't enough to dust a flute (~Cornet~: Toot! toot!) -- Before you sling your 'ook, at the 'ousetops take a look, For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide the loot. (~Chorus~) Ow the loot! . . . You can mostly square a Sergint an' a Quartermaster too, If you only take the proper way to go; ~I~ could never keep my pickin's, but I've learned you all I knew -- An' don't you never say I told you so. An' now I'll bid good-bye, for I'm gettin' rather dry,

Verses 1889-1896

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp:

and vast, illustrated in this instance by the easy substitution in the arbour of slugs for grandfathers, I went slowly round the next bend of the path, and came to the broad walk along the south side of the high wall dividing the flower garden from the kitchen garden, in which sheltered position my father had had his choicest flowers. Here the cousins had been at work, and all the climbing roses that clothed the wall with beauty were gone, and some very neat fruit trees, tidily nailed up at proper <86> intervals, reigned in their stead. Evidently the cousins knew the value of this warm aspect, for in the border beneath, filled in my father's time in this

Elizabeth and her German Garden

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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

(13) Whatever you do, you'll give us the Greek Vase.

(14) Do you like Jonson's 'loathed stage'? Verses 2, 3, and 4 are so bad, also the last line. But there is a fine movement and feeling in the rest.

We will have the Duke of Wellington by God. Pro Symonds and Stevenson.

R. L. S.

Letter: TO CHARLES WARREN STODDARD

HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND [DECEMBER 1880].

DEAR CHARLES WARREN STODDARD, - Many thanks to you for the letter and the photograph. Will you think it mean if I ask you to wait