Today's Stichomancy for George S. Patton

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

a kettle of water over to boil. The Ruler of Oz stood before the fire silent and grave, while the others, realizing that an important ceremony of magic was about to be performed, stood quietly in the background so as not to interrupt Ozma's proceedings. Only Polychrome kept going in and coming out, humming softly to herself as she danced, for the Rainbow's Daughter could not keep still for long, and the four walls of a room always made her nervous and ill at ease. She moved so noiselessly, however, that her movements were like the shifting of sunbeams and did not annoy anyone.

The Tin Woodman of Oz

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

Naturally, for business reasons, I don't publish the relationship."

Bassett glanced at him.

"That so? Well, I'm glad she decided to come back. She's too good to bury."

But if he expected Gregory to follow the lead he was disappointed. His eyes, blank and expressionless, were wandering over the house as the lights flashed up.

"This whole tour has been a triumph. She's the best there is," Gregory repeated, "and they know it."

"Does she know it?" Bassett inquired.

"She doesn't throw any temperament, if that's what you mean. She - "

The Breaking Point

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells:

soon to be settled in this city, "a slight disturbance" in that. The song of the social revolt came to him no more; he never learned that it had been forbidden in the municipal limits; and all the great emotions of the crow's nest slumbered in his mind.

But on the second and third of the three days he found himself, in spite of his interest in the daughter of the Pig Manager, or it may be by, reason of the thoughts her conversation suggested, remembering the girl Helen Wotton, who had spoken to him so oddly at the Wind-Vane

When the Sleeper Wakes

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 Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Transplanted by my care, And saints, upon their garments white, These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain, The flowers she most did love; She knew she should find them all again In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath, The Reaper came that day; 'T was an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away.