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 Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll:

(I said "It serves them right!")

"And folk who sup on things like these - " He muttered, "eggs and bacon - Lobster - and duck - and toasted cheese - If they don't get an awful squeeze, I'm very much mistaken!

"He is immensely fat, and so Well suits the occupation: In point of fact, if you must know, We used to call him years ago, THE MAYOR AND CORPORATION!

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac:

desired to be alone in the Count's room.

" 'Do not go in,' he said; and I admired the child for his tone and gesture; 'she is praying there.'

"Gobseck began to laugh that soundless laugh of his, but I felt too much touched by the feeling in Ernest's little face to join in the miser's sardonic amusement. When Ernest saw that we moved towards the door, he planted himself in front of it, crying out, 'Mamma, here are some gentlemen in black who want to see you.!'

"Gobseck lifted Ernest out of the way as if the child had been a feather, and opened the door.

"What a scene it was that met our eyes! The room was in frightful

Gobseck

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

and the heavy eyelids of my bronze Narcissus are folded in sleep. Don't let us discuss anything solemnly. I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood. Don't degrade me into the position of giving you useful information. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Through the parted curtains of the window I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her. The sky is a hard hollow sapphire. Let us go out into the night. Thought is wonderful, but adventure is more wonderful

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 Common Sense by Thomas Paine:

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honours than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honours could have no power to give away the right of posterity. And though they might say, "We chooses you for OUR head," they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say, "that your children and your children's children shall reign over OURS for ever." Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed;

Common Sense