Today's Stichomancy for Karl Marx

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon:

assign[12] the appropriate place for each set of things. This shall be the place where we will put the things; and we will instruct the housekeeper that she is to take them out thence, and mind to put them back again there; and in this way we shall know whether they are safe or not. If anything is gone, the gaping space will cry out as if it asked for something back.[13] The mere look and aspect of things will argue what wants mending;[14] and the fact of knowing where each thing is will be like having it put into one's hand at once to use without further trouble or debate."

[12] {dokimasometha}, "we will write over each in turn, as it were, 'examined and approved.'"

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot:

Footsteps shuffled on the stair. Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be savagely still, 110

'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. 'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. 'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? 'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'

I think we are in rats' alley Where the dead men lost their bones.

'What is that noise?'

The Waste Land

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells:

was struck, and overset and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know--flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple--a black thing in the bright blue water.

"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface.

"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater.

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 Call of the Wild by Jack London:

too good-natured for quarrelling,--besides, they belonged to John Thornton; but the strange dog, no matter what the breed or valor, swiftly acknowledged Buck's supremacy or found himself struggling for life with a terrible antagonist. And Buck was merciless. He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police and mail, and knew there was no middle course. He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be