Today's Stichomancy for Oprah Winfrey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger:

united by starvation, disease and misery. We are enjoying the ironic internationalism of hatred. The victors are forced to shoulder the burden of the vanquished. International philanthropies and charities are organized. The great flux of immigration and emigration has recommenced. Prosperity is a myth; and the rich are called upon to support huge philanthropies, in the futile attempt to sweep back the tide of famine and misery. In the face of this new internationalism, this tangled unity of the world, all proposed political and economic programs reveal a woeful common bankruptcy. They are fragmentary and superficial. None of them go to the root of this unprecedented world problem. Politicians offer political solutions,--like the League of

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

him that he was just going to look him up on a matter of business.

Fanarin knew Nekhludoff by sight and name, and said he would be very glad to be of service to him.

"Though I am rather tired, still, if your business will not take very long, perhaps you might tell me what it is now. Will you step in here?" And he led Nekhludoff into a room, probably some judge's cabinet. They sat down by the table.

"Well, and what is your business?"

"First of all, I must ask you to keep the business private. I do not want it known that I take an interest in the affair."

Resurrection

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

and at Waterloo, an hour later, I telegraphed possessively to the Mulvilles. When he objected, as regards staying all night, that he had no things, I asked him if he hadn't everything of mine. I had abstained from ordering dinner, and it was too late for preliminaries at a club; so we were reduced to tea and fried fish at my rooms--reduced also to the transcendent. Something had come up which made me want him to feel at peace with me--and which, precisely, was all the dear man himself wanted on any occasion. I had too often had to press upon him considerations irrelevant, but it gives me pleasure now to think that on that particular evening I didn't even mention Mrs. Saltram and the children. Late into the

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 Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling:

Fly away - die away - Dwindle down and leave you! But if you don't deceive your Bees, Your Bees will not deceive you.

Marriage, birth or buryin', News across the seas, All you're sad or merry in, You must tell the Bees. Tell 'em coming in an' out, Where the Fanners fan, 'Cause the Bees are justabout