Today's Stichomancy for Franklin Roosevelt

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome:

slabs of some sort of white stuff of no particular consistency or taste. Then tea and a lump of sugar. The conversation was mostly about the chances of peace, and Litvinov's rather pessimistic reports were heard with disappointment. Just as I had finished, Vorovsky, Madame Vorovsky and little Nina, together with the two Norwegians and the Swede, came in. I learnt that about half the party were going on to Moscow that night and, deciding to go with them, hurried off to the hotel.

PETROGRAD TO MOSCOW

There was, of course, a dreadful scrimmage about getting

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy:

twisted round to one side, was standing not in his former place but nearer to the shafts, shaking his head which the reins he was stepping on drew downwards. It turned out that Vasili Andreevich had sunk in the same ravine Nikita had previously fallen into, and that Mukhorty had been bringing him back to the sledge and he had got off his back no more than fifty paces from where the sledge was.

Having stumbled back to the sledge Vasili Andreevich caught hold of it and for a long time stood motionless, trying to calm himself and recover his breath. Nikita was not in his former

Master and Man

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson:

And if, in any degree, it does so now, how much more might it do so if the writers chose! There is not a life in all the records of the past but, properly studied, might lend a hint and a help to some contemporary. There is not a juncture in to-day's affairs but some useful word may yet be said of it. Even the reporter has an office, and, with clear eyes and honest language, may unveil injustices and point the way to progress. And for a last word: in all narration there is only one way to be clever, and that is to be exact. To be vivid is a secondary quality which must presuppose the first; for vividly to convey a wrong impression is only to make

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 A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest:

And all success is merely someone's luck; Some men are down because they were unnerved, And some are up because they kept their pluck. Some men are down because they chose to shirk; Some men are high because they did their work.

I do not think that all the poor are good, That riches are the uniform of shame; The beggar might have conquered if he would, And that he begs, the world is not to blame. Misfortune is not all that comes to mar; Most men, themselves, have shaped the things

A Heap O' Livin'