Today's Stichomancy for Donald Rumsfeld

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon:

thronged the broad promenade.

Scarcely a word was spoken until they reached the rustic house nestling among the trees on the hill.

"Just a week by the calendar," she murmured. "And I've lived a lifetime."

"It's all right then--little girl? You'll marry me right away? When--tonight?"

"Hardly!"

"Tomorrow, then?"

She drew the glove from her hand and held the slender fingers up before him.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde:

visited on the children. It is a just law. It is God's law.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. It is one of God's terrible laws.

[Moves away to fireplace.]

HESTER. You are distressed about your son leaving you, Mrs. Arbuthnot?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Yes.

HESTER. Do you like him going away with Lord Illingworth? Of course there is position, no doubt, and money, but position and money are not everything, are they?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. They are nothing; they bring misery.

HESTER. Then why do you let your son go with him?

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf:

she walked a pace or so to the end of the lawn to see whether, down there on the beach, she could see that little company setting sail. Down there among the little boats which floated, some with their sails furled, some slowly, for it was very calm moving away, there was one rather apart from the others. The sail was even now being hoisted. She decided that there in that very distant and entirely silent little boat Mr Ramsay was sitting with Cam and James. Now they had got the sail up; now after a little flagging and silence, she watched the boat take its way with deliberation past the other boats out to sea.

The sails flapped over their heads. The water chuckled and slapped the

To the Lighthouse

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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac:

vould make you an indelligent und defoted vife. In our beastly pizness, nopody cares to know who lifs or dies; it is a crate plessing gif a mann kann put drust in his vife's heart. Mein Telvine prouht me more as a million, as you know, but I should gladly gif her for Malfina dot haf not so pig a DOT.'

" 'But how much has she?'

" 'I do not know precisely; boot she haf somdings.'

" 'Yes, she has a mother with a great liking for rose-color.' said du Tillet; and with that epigram he cut Nucingen's diplomatic efforts short.

"After dinner the Baron de Nucingen informed Wilhelmine Adolphus that