Today's Stichomancy for Benito Juarez

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

He would have given it all if in return There might have been a more sufficient face To greet him when he shaved. Though you insist It is the dower, and always, of our degree Not to be cursed with such invidious insight, Remember that you stand, you and your fancy, Now in his house; and since we are together, See for yourself and tell me what you see. Tell me the best you see. Make a slight noise Of recognition when you find a book That you would not as lief read upside down

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac:

a former bailiff in the Simeuse family. This man, a lawyer before and after the Revolution, was afraid of the keeper; he made him his bailiff with a salary of three thousand francs, and gave him an interest in the sales of timber; Michu, who was thought to have some ten thousand francs of his own laid by, married the daughter of a tanner at Troyes, an apostle of the Revolution in that town, where he was president of the revolutionary tribunal. This tanner, a man of profound convictions, who resembled Saint-Just as to character, was afterwards mixed up in Baboeuf's conspiracy and killed himself to escape execution. Marthe was the handsomest girl in Troyes. In spite of her shrinking modesty she had been forced by her formidable father

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

and a pair of pistols over his soldier's cloak. He looked ridiculous enough in that heroic attire.

I was concealed from their sight by a tall bush, but I was able to see everything through the leaves, and to guess from the expression of their faces that the conversation was of a sentimental turn. At length they approached the slope; Grushnitski took hold of the bridle of the Princess's horse, and then I heard the conclusion of their conversation:

"And you wish to remain all your life in the

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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac:

to meet one-half nor one-third of the demand, some cheaper material than linen rags must be found for cheap paper. This deduction is based on facts that came under my knowledge here. The Angouleme paper- makers, the last to use pure linen rags, say that the proportion of cotton in the pulp has increased to a frightful extent of late years."

In answer to a question from Eve, who did not know what "pulp" meant, David gave an account of paper-making, which will not be out of place in a volume which owes its existence in book form to the paper industry no less than to the printing-press; but the long digression, doubtless, had best be condensed at first.

Paper, an invention not less marvelous than the other dependent