Today's Stichomancy for Douglas MacArthur

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley:

things he can find, cocoa-nuts he has learned to eat, and after a fashion which it would puzzle you to imitate. Some say that he climbs up the stems of the cocoa-nut trees, and pulls the fruit down for himself; but that, it seems, he does not usually do. What he does is this: when he finds a fallen cocoa-nut, he begins tearing away the thick husk and fibre with his strong claws; and he knows perfectly well which end to tear it from, namely, from the end where the three eye-holes are, which you call the monkey's face, out of one of which you know, the young cocoa-nut tree would burst forth. And when he has got to the eye-holes, he hammers through one of them with the point of his heavy claw. So far, so

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale:

The hunted hurrying people were still the same....

AFTER LOVE

THERE is no magic when we meet, We speak as other people do, You work no miracle for me Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea-- There is no splendor any more, I have grown listless as the pool Beside the shore.

But tho' the pool is safe from storm

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower:

What man that lasseth the franchise And takth of holi cherche his preie, I not what bedes he schal preie. Whan he fro god, which hath yive al, The Pourpartie in special, 7000 Which unto Crist himself is due, Benymth, he mai noght wel eschue The peine comende afterward; For he hath mad his foreward With Sacrilegge forto duelle, Which hath his heritage in helle.

Confessio Amantis

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 Poems by T. S. Eliot:

Otis laughter was submarine and profound Like the old man of the sea's Hidden under coral islands Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence, Dropping from fingers of surf. I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair Or grinning over a screen With seaweed in its hair. I heard the beat of centaur's hoofs over the hard turf As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon. "He is a charming man"--"But after all what did he mean?"--