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 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: "I do not blame Jane," she continued, "for Jane would have got
Mr. Bingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard
to think that she might have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time,
had it not been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer
in this very room, and she refused him. The consequence of it is,
that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I have, and
that the Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The
Lucases are very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for
what they can get. I am sorry to say it of them, but so it is. It
makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted so in my own
family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves before
 Pride and Prejudice |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: Unmarried, certainly. And most certainly no longer young. In
figure, she was, at fifty, what is known in the corset ads as a
"stylish stout." Well dressed in dark suits, with broad-toed
health shoes and a small, astute hat. The suit was practical
common sense. The health shoes were comfort. The hat was
strictly business. Sophy Decker made and sold hats, both astute
and ingenuous, to the female population of Chippewa, Wisconsin.
Chippewa's East End set bought the knowing type of hat, and the
mill hands and hired girls bought the naive ones. But whether
lumpy or possessed of that thing known as line, Sophy Decker's
hats were honest hats.
 One Basket |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: found he was walled in, and no more was to be had in the
peninsula, taking the opportunity of a snowy, stormy night, he
filled up part of the ditch with earth and boughs of trees, and so
passed the third part of his army over.
Crassus was afraid lest he should march directly to Rome, but was
soon eased of that fear when he saw many of his men break out in a
mutiny and quit him, and encamp by themselves upon the Lucanian
lake. This lake they say changes at intervals of time, and is
sometimes sweet, and sometimes so salt that it cannot be drunk.
Crassus falling upon these beat them from the lake, but he could
not pursue the slaughter, because of Spartacus suddenly coming up,
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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 Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: contrast than when he passes from Damien's "Chinatown" at Kalawao
to the beautiful Bishop-Home at Kalaupapa. At this point, in my
desire to make all fair for you, I will break my rule and adduce
Catholic testimony. Here is a passage from my diary about my visit
to the Chinatown, from which you will see how it is (even now)
regarded by its own officials: "We went round all the dormitories,
refectories, etc. - dark and dingy enough, with a superficial
cleanliness, which he" [Mr. Dutton, the lay-brother] "did not seek
to defend. 'It is almost decent,' said he; 'the sisters will make
that all right when we get them here.' " And yet I gathered it was
already better since Damien was dead, and far better than when he
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