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 Hellenica by Xenophon:

a message in advance to Amyntas, begging him, if he were truly desirous of recovering his empire, to raise a body of mercenaries, and to distribute sums of money among the neighbouring kings with a view to their alliance. Nor was that all. He sent also to Derdas, the ruler of Elimia, pointing out to him that the Olynthians, having laid at their feet the great power of Macedonia, would certainly not suffer his lesser power to escape unless they were stayed up by force in arms in their career of insolence. Proceeding thus, by the time he had reached the territory of the allied powers he was at the head of a very considerable army. At Potidaea he halted to make the necessary disposition of his troops, and thence advanced into the territory of

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

March 399 B.C.

PREPARER'S NOTE

This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though there is doubt about some of these) is:

Work Number of books

The Anabasis 7 The Hellenica 7 The Cyropaedia 8 The Memorabilia 4 The Symposium 1

Anabasis

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius:

The left the right. An image too may be From mirror into mirror handed on, Until of idol-films even five or six Have thus been gendered. For whatever things Shall hide back yonder in the house, the same, However far removed in twisting ways, May still be all brought forth through bending paths And by these several mirrors seen to be Within the house, since nature so compels All things to be borne backward and spring off At equal angles from all other things.

Of The Nature of Things

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 Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare:

For marks descried in men's nativity Are nature's faults, not their own infamy.'

Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye He rouseth up himself and makes a pause; While she, the picture of pure piety, Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws, Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws, To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

But when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threat, In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,