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 The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac:

gold pieces. The one are vexed at an aimless impertinence, and allow themselves to be ridiculed by the diplomatic, who make them dance for them by pulling what is the main string of these puppets--their vanity. Thus, a day comes when those who had nothing have something, and those who had something have nothing. The latter look at their comrades who have achieved positions as cunning fellows; their hearts may be bad, but their heads are strong. "He is very strong!" is the supreme praise accorded to those who have attained /quibuscumque viis/, political rank, a woman, or a fortune. Amongst them are to be found certain young men who play this /role/ by commencing with having debts. Naturally, these are more dangerous than those who play it

The Girl with the Golden Eyes

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon:

revolutions or the application made of them--whether we deal with the government of the State or with the civil legislation, with property or with persons, with liberty or with power, we shall find nothing of which the invention can be attributed to them, nothing that will not be encountered elsewhere, or that was not at least originated in times which we qualify as normal.''

All these assertions merely recall the banal law that a phenomenon is simply the consequence of previous phenomena. Such very general propositions do not teach us much.

We must not try to explain too many events by the principle of fatality adopted by so many historians. I have elsewhere

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen:

against her daughter; his idea of her must be drawn from the mother's description. Well, whatever may be his fate, we have the comfort of knowing that we have done our utmost to save him. We must commit the event to a higher power.

Yours ever, &c.,

CATHERINE VERNON.

XVl

LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

Churchhill.

Never, my dearest Alicia, was I so provoked in my life as by a letter this morning from Miss Summers. That horrid girl of mine has been trying to

Lady Susan

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 Poems by Oscar Wilde:

Poem: Quia Multum Amavi

Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest When first he takes from out the hidden shrine His God imprisoned in the Eucharist, And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee, And all night long before thy feet I knelt Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.

Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more, Through all those summer days of joy and rain,