Today's Stichomancy for Kim Jong Il

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James:

were as so many set traps for displeasure, above all for reaction, of which his restless tread was constantly pressing the spring. It was interesting, doubtless, the whole show, but it would have been too disconcerting hadn't a certain finer truth saved the situation. He had distinctly not, in this steadier light, come over ALL for the monstrosities; he had come, not only in the last analysis but quite on the face of the act, under an impulse with which they had nothing to do. He had come - putting the thing pompously - to look at his "property," which he had thus for a third of a century not been within four thousand miles of; or, expressing it less sordidly, he had yielded to the humour of seeing again his house on

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman:

He never questioned the right of a woman to bar tobacco smoke from a house. Before leaving he refilled some of the saucers. He was not sure that all of the cats were there; some might be afield, hunting, and he wished them to find refreshment when they returned. He stroked the splendid striped back of a great tiger tommy which filled his arm- chair. This cat was his special pet. He fastened the outer shed door with a bit of rope in order that it might not blow entirely open, and yet allow his feline friends to pass, should they choose. Then he

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde:

tue, le jeune Syrien. Je le regrette. Oui, je le regrette beaucoup. Car il etait beau. Il etait meme tres beau. Il avait des yeux tres langoureux. Je me rappelle que je l'ai vu regardant Salome d'une facon langoureuse. En effet, j'ai trouve qu'il l'avait un peu trop regardee.

HERODIAS. Il y en a d'autres qui la regardent trop.

HERODE. Son pere etait roi. Je l'ai chasse de son royaume. Et de sa mere qui etait reine vous avez fait une esclave, Herodias. Ainsi, il etait ici comme un hote. C'etait e cause de cela que je l'avais fait capitaine. Je regrette qu'il soit mort . . . Enfin, pourquoi avez-vous laisse le cadavre ici? Il faut l'emporter

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 The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

There are none will own his enmity, there are none will call him brother. So we'll be up and on the way, and the less we brag the better For the freedom that God gave us and the dread we do not know: -- The frost that skips the willow-leaf will again be back to blight it, And the doom we cannot fly from is the doom we do not see.

Come away! come away! there are dead men all around us -- Frozen men that mock us with a wild, hard laugh That shrieks and sinks and whimpers in the shrill November rushes, And the long fall wind on the lake.

Octaves