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 The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

her that it was only until he could take the lady to an asylum. One look at the wall paper, a glance out of the window, and Muller knew that this was where Asta Langen had been imprisoned. He sat down on a chair and looked at the woman, who stood frightened before him.

"Do you know where they have taken the lady?"

"No, sir.

"Do you know the gentleman's name?"

"No, sir.

"You did not send the lady's name to the authorities?" *

"No, sir. ___________________________________________________________________

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister:

explained to him my nationality.

"I shouldn't have known it," he remarked, after an instant's pause.

I pressed him for his reason, which he gave; somewhat reluctantly, I think, but with excellent good-will. Of course it was the same old mother-tongue!

"You mean," I said, "that I haven't happened to say 'I guess,' and that I don't, perhaps, talk through my nose? But we don't all do that. We do all sorts of things."

He stuck to it. "You talk like us."

"Well, I'm sure I don't mean to talk like anybody!" I sighed.

This diverted him, and brought us closer.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass:

of danger to republican government. Whatever may be tolerated in monarchical and despotic governments, no republic is safe that tolerates a privileged class, or denies to any of its citizens equal rights and equal means to maintain them. What was theory before the war has been made fact by the war.

There is cause to be thankful even for rebellion. It is an impressive teacher, though a stern and terrible one. In both characters it has come to us, and it was perhaps needed in both. It is an instructor never a day before its time, for it comes only when all other means of progress and enlightenment have failed. Whether the oppressed and despairing bondman, no longer able to repress his deep yearnings

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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac:

cool air along the Loire, and to watch the sunset effects on a landscape as wide as the Bay of Naples or the Lake of Geneva.

During the whole time of her stay at La Grenadiere she went but twice into Tours; once to call on the headmaster of the school, to ask him to give her the names of the best masters of Latin, drawing, and mathematics; and a second time to make arrangements for the children's lessons. But her appearance on the bridge of an evening, once or twice a week, was quite enough to excite the interest of almost all the inhabitants of Tours, who make a regular promenade of the bridge. Still, in spite of a kind of spy system, by which no harm is meant, a provincial habit bred of want of occupation and the restless