Today's Stichomancy for Leon Trotsky

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin:

favourable, as previously explained, for the formation of new varieties and species; but during such periods there will generally be a blank in the geological record. On the other hand, during subsidence, the inhabited area and number of inhabitants will decrease (excepting the productions on the shores of a continent when first broken up into an archipelago), and consequently during subsidence, though there will be much extinction, fewer new varieties or species will be formed; and it is during these very periods of subsidence, that our great deposits rich in fossils have been accumulated. Nature may almost be said to have guarded against the frequent discovery of her transitional or linking forms.

From the foregoing considerations it cannot be doubted that the geological

On the Origin of Species

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov:

treasures hidden here," the old man went on; "it is so for sure. . . and no mistake about it. An old soldier of Novopavlovka was shown at Ivanovka a writing, and in this writing it was printed about the place of the treasure and even how many pounds of gold was in it and the sort of vessel it was in; they would have found the treasures long ago by that writing, only the treasure is under a spell, you can't get at it."

"Why can't you get at it, grandfather?" asked the young man.

I suppose there is some reason, the soldier didn't say. It is under a spell . . . you need a talisman."

The old man spoke with warmth, as though he were pouring out his

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde:

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

You must create something in art: my verse 'is thine, and BORN of thee'; only listen to me, and I will 'BRING FORTH eternal numbers to outlive long date,' and you shall people with forms of your own image the imaginary world of the stage. These children that you beget, he continues, will not wither away, as mortal children do, but you shall live in them and in my plays: do but -

Make thee another self, for love of me, That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

I collected all the passages that seemed to me to corroborate this

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 Anabasis by Xenophon:

years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.

The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and 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

Anabasis