Today's Stichomancy for Tom Leykis

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes:

deed performed because of the courteous ideals of chivalry. The debt of our own social code to this literature of courtesy and frequent self-sacrifice is perfectly manifest.

What Chretien's immediate and specific source was for his romances is of deep interest to the student. Unfortunately, he has left us in doubt. He speaks in the vaguest way of the materials he used. There is no evidence that he had any Celtic written source. We are thus thrown back upon Latin or French literary originals which are lost, or upon current continental lore going back to a Celtic source. This very difficult problem is as yet unsolved in the case of Chretien, as it is in the case

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato:

SOCRATES: Then as to the other topics--are they not thrown down anyhow? Is there any principle in them? Why should the next topic follow next in order, or any other topic? I cannot help fancying in my ignorance that he wrote off boldly just what came into his head, but I dare say that you would recognize a rhetorical necessity in the succession of the several parts of the composition?

PHAEDRUS: You have too good an opinion of me if you think that I have any such insight into his principles of composition.

SOCRATES: At any rate, you will allow that every discourse ought to be a living creature, having a body of its own and a head and feet; there should be a middle, beginning, and end, adapted to one another and to the whole?

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer:

o 144 to 160 officers and enlisted men of the evacuation detachment, located 14 kilometers northwest of ground zero near Guard Post 2

o Five radiological safety monitors assigned to the evacuation detachment to perform offsite monitoring of nearby towns and residences

o One radiological safety monitor assigned to Guard Post 4

o Two military policemen at each of the seven guard posts (indicated by photographs such as figures 1-3 and 1-4).

2.2 DETONATION AND POSTSHOT ACTIVITIES

Because of bad weather, the Project TRINITY director (Dr. Bainbridge) delayed the detonation, which had been scheduled for 0400 hours. By

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 Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard:

pounds' worth of oxen?

Then a Zulu spoke, who hitherto had remained silent. He was the driver of the first wagon.

"My father," he said to the White Man, "this is my word. The oxen are lost in the snow. No man knows whither they have gone, or whether they live or are now but hides and bones. Yet at the kraal yonder," and he pointed to some huts about two miles away on the hillside, "lives a witch doctor named Zweete. He is old--very old--but he has wisdom, and he can tell you where the oxen are if any man may, my father."

"Stuff!" answered the White Man. "Still, as the kraal cannot be colder than this wagon, we will go and ask Zweete. Bring a bottle of

Nada the Lily