Today's Stichomancy for Nelson Mandela

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells:

Graham, in his later democratic days, had taken a keen interest in these and his questioning quickened. Certain casual phrases that had fallen from the old man with whom he had talked in the darkness recurred to him. The Surveyor-General, in effect, endorsed the old man's words. "We have abolished Cram," he said, a phrase Graham was beginning to interpret as the abolition of all sustained work. The Surveyor- General became sentimental. "We try and make the elementary schools very pleasant for the little children. They will have to work so soon. Just a few

When the Sleeper Wakes

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar:

comparari iubet. His rebus celeriter administratis ipse, cum primum per anni tempus potuit, ad exercitum contendit. Veneti reliquaeque item civitates cognito Caesaris adventu [certiores facti], simul quod quantum in se facinus admisissent intellegebant, [legatos, quod nomen ad omnes nationes sanctum inviolatumque semper fuisset, retentos ab se et in vincula coniectos,] pro magnitudine periculi bellum parare et maxime ea quae ad usum navium pertinent providere instituunt, boc maiore spe quod multum natura loci confidebant. Pedestria esse itinera concisa aestuariis, navigationem impeditam propter inscientiam locorum paucitatemque portuum sciebant, neque nostros exercitus propter inopiam frumenti diutius apud se morari posse confidebant; ac iam ut omnia contra

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry:

when I get cured. I might turn in a story about a sea serpent wiggling up Broadway, but I haven't got the nerve to try 'em with a pipe like this. A get-rich-quick scheme--excuse me--gang giving back the boodle! Oh, no. I'm not on the comic supplement."

"You can't understand it, of course," says Buck, with his hand on the door knob. "Me and Pick ain't Wall Streeters like you know 'em. We never allowed to swindle sick old women and working girls and take nickels off of kids. In the lines of graft we've worked we took money from the people the Lord made to be buncoed--sports and rounders and smart Alecks and street crowds, that always have a few dollars to throw away, and farmers that wouldn't ever be happy if the grafters

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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic:

and to shoot, and all that. It doesn't come to you by tradition--and you haven't the vacancy of mind which might be a substitute for tradition. What are you doing in the country, then? Just eating too much, and sitting about, and getting fat and stupid. If you want the truth, there it is for you."

Thorpe, putting out his lips judicially, inclined upon reflection to the view that this was the truth. "That's all right, as far as it goes," he assented, with hesitation. "But what the hell else is there?"

The little Scotchman had grown too interested in his diagnosis

The Market-Place