Today's Stichomancy for Colin Powell

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:

representatives received the following edict from the great Dowager through the regular channel of the Foreign Office of which Prince Ching was the president:

"It is the excellent will of Tze-hsi-kuan-yu-k'ang- i-chao-yu-chuang-ch'eng-shou-kung-ch'in-hsien-chung-hsi, the great Empress Dowager that Tsai Feng, Prince of Chun, be appointed Prince Regent (She Chang-wang)."

The above edict was soon followed by another which stated that "Pu I, the son of Tsai Feng, should be reared in the palace and taught in the imperial schoolroom," an indication that he was to be the next emperor, and that Tsai Feng and not Kuang Hsu was to

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic:

pay fifty cents a week for her board, at the house of a poor widow. Katy knew her history, and felt very sad as she thought of her being deprived of the means of support.

"I don't know what I shall do," sighed Mary.

"I have to take care of my mother now, and shall not have time to make candy," said Katy.

"Do you mean to give up for good?" asked one of them.

"I don't know."

This question suggested some painful reflections to Katy. If they stopped making candy, she and her mother, as well as orphan Mary, would be deprived of the means of support. She trembled as she

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

to see you once more before you pass over for ever into that other life that I shall never know, and which though I have died thrice and shall die again to-night, as you know death, I am as unable to fathom as are you.

'Even the wise and mysterious therns of Barsoom, that ancient cult which for countless ages has been credited with holding the secret of life and death in their impregnable fastnesses upon the hither slopes of the Mountains of Otz, are as ignorant as we. I have proved it, though I near lost my life in the doing of it; but you shall read it all in the notes I have been making during the last three months that I have been back upon Earth.'

The Gods of Mars

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 Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles:

Killed him and so _I_ slew him in a sense. But, as they stand, the oracles are dead-- Dust, ashes, nothing, dead as Polybus.

JOCASTA Say, did not I foretell this long ago?

OEDIPUS Thou didst: but I was misled by my fear.

JOCASTA Then let I no more weigh upon thy soul.

OEDIPUS Must I not fear my mother's marriage bed.

Oedipus Trilogy