Today's Stichomancy for Charles de Gaulle

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland:

there in the presence of her hostess her outer robes are changed for others of a more official character.

Her next call is at the birthday celebration of the mother of one of the highest officials in the capital. I was present when she arrived. Instead of entering by the front gate, she went by a private entrance directly to the apartments of her hostess. Many guests (all gentlemen) were assembled in the front court, which was covered by a mat pavilion and converted into a theatre. The court was several feet lower than the adjoining house, the front windows of which were all removed and it was used for the accommodation of the lady guests. On the walls of the temporary

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter:

activity and the pace of life increased--less and less time was left for meditation and repose--till with the rise of Western Europe and America, the dominant note of life seems to have simply become one of feverish and ceaseless activity--of activity merely for the sake of activity, without any clear idea of its own purpose or object.

Such a prospect does not at first seem very hopeful; but on second thoughts we see that we are not forced to draw any very pessimistic conclusion from it. The direction of human evolution need not remain always the same. The movement, in fact, of civilization from East to West has now clearly

Pagan and Christian Creeds

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske:

deductive. These suggestions are, therefore, not to be regarded as properly scientific; but, with this word of caution, we may proceed to show what they are.

Compared with the life and death of cosmical systems which we have heretofore contemplated, the life and death of individuals of the human race may perhaps seem a small matter; yet because we are ourselves the men who live and die, the small event is of vastly greater interest to us than the grand series of events of which it is part and parcel. It is natural that we should be more interested in the ultimate fate of humanity than in the fate of a world which is of no account to us save as our present

The Unseen World and Other Essays

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 Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson:

it."

This time he was so pleased he had to try his English again. "You talk true?" says he.

"Rather!" said I. "Talk all-e-same Bible. Bring out a Bible here, Uma, if you've got such a thing, and I'll kiss it. Or, I'll tell you what's better still," says I, taking a header, "ask him if he's afraid to go up there himself by day."

It appeared he wasn't; he could venture as far as that by day and in company.

"That's the ticket, then!" said I. "Tell him the man's a fraud and the place foolishness, and if he'll go up there to-morrow he'll see