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 The Symposium by Xenophon:

conscience checked it" (Kennedy).

Soc. Well then, I call upon you first of all, as party to this suit, to undergo the preliminary examination.[3] Attend to what I say, and please be good enough to answer.

[3] The {anakrisis}, or "previous inquiry" (before one of the archons) of parties concerned in a suit, to see whether the action lay. Cf. Plat. "Charm." 176 C. See Gow, "Companion," xiv. 74.

Crit. Do you be good enough yourself to put your questions.

Soc. Do you consider that the quality of beauty is confined to man, or is it to be found in other objects also? What is your belief on this point?

The Symposium

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

down to him?' but if we had sent down an angel, the affair would have been decided, and then they would have had no respite.

And had we made him an angel, we should have made him as a man too; and we would have made perplexing for them that which they deem perplexing now.

There have been prophets before thee mocked at, but that encompassed them which the scoffers among them mocked at.

Say, 'Go about in the earth, then wilt thou see how has been the end of those who called them liars.'

Say, 'Whose is what is in the heavens and the earth?

Say, 'God's, who has imposed mercy on himself.' He will surely

The Koran

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Young Forester by Zane Grey:

thet bear doin' in here?"

"He was roped up--hyar's the hitch," answered Bud.

"An' hyar's a rifle--Winchester--ain't been used much. Buell, it's thet kid's!"

I heard rapid footsteps and smothered exclamations.

"Take it from me, you're right!" ejaculated Buell. "We jest missed him. Herky, them tracks out there? Somebody's with this boy--who?"

"It's Jim Williams," put in Dick Leslie, cool-voiced and threatening.

The little stillness that followed his words was broken by Buell.

"Naw! 'Twasn't Williams. You can't bluff this bunch, Leslie. By your own words Williams is lookin' for us, an' if he's lookin' for anybody I know

The Young Forester

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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson:

enjoyment in a world of moon-shine. Sensation does not count for so much in our first years as afterwards; something of the swaddling numbness of infancy clings about us; we see and touch and hear through a sort of golden mist. Children, for instance, are able enough to see, but they have no great faculty for looking; they do not use their eyes for the pleasure of using them, but for by-ends of their own; and the things I call to mind seeing most vividly, were not beautiful in themselves, but merely interesting or enviable to me as I thought they might be turned to practical account in play. Nor is the sense of touch so clean and poignant in children as