Today's Stichomancy for Mao Zedong

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London:

back. And he was unconquerable. Yelping shrilly from the pain of lash and club, he none the less contrived always to throw in the defiant snarl, the bitter vindictive menace of his soul which fetched without fail more blows and beatings. But his was his mother's tenacious grip on life. Nothing could kill him. He flourished under misfortune, grew fat with famine, and out of his terrible struggle for life developed a preternatural intelligence. His were the stealth and cunning of the husky, his mother, and the fierceness and valour of the wolf, his father.

Possibly it was because of his father that he never wailed. His puppy yelps passed with his lanky legs, so that he became grim and

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

complexion of her skin was embellished that she might appear whiter and rosier than she really was, and her figure that she might seem taller than nature made her; she stared with wide-open eyes, and the raiment wherewith she was clad served but to reveal the ripeness of her bloom. With frequent glances she surveyed her person, or looked to see if others noticed her; while ever and anon she fixed her gaze upon the shadow of herself intently.

[30] Reading {eleutherion phusei, . . .} or if {eleutherion, phusei . . .} translate "nature had adorned her limbs . . ."

"Now when these two had drawn near to Heracles, she who was first named advanced at an even pace[31] towards him, but the other, in her

The Memorabilia

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan:

and plain denial of the supposition that he spent the whole of his time in doing the little wooden 'pochade' things whose sweetness and delicacy had so feasted our eyes elsewhere. It was part, no doubt, of his absolutely uncommercial nature--we had experienced together passages of the keenest embarrassment over my purchase of some of his studies--that he had not mentioned these more serious things exposed at Kauffer's; one had the feeling of coming unexpectedly on treasure left upon the wayside and forgotten.

'Hullo!' I said, at a standstill, 'I see you've got some of Mr. Armour's work there.'

Mr. Kauffer, with his hands behind him, made the sound which has its

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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius:

With ease resist such nature. For it darts Between and enters through the pores of things; And so it never falters in delay Despite innumerable collisions, but Flies shooting onward with a swift elan. Next, since by nature always every weight Bears downward, doubled is the swiftness then And that elan is still more wild and dread, When, verily, to weight are added blows, So that more madly and more fiercely then The thunderbolt shakes into shivers all

Of The Nature of Things