Today's Stichomancy for Mikhail Gorbachev

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

The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practis'd it on such occasions; and, from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato:

determine the nature of discourse.

STRANGER: Perhaps you will see more clearly by the help of the following explanation.

THEAETETUS: What explanation?

STRANGER: Not-being has been acknowledged by us to be one among many classes diffused over all being.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And thence arises the question, whether not-being mingles with opinion and language.

THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: If not-being has no part in the proposition, then all things

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott:

to name 'LOYALTY'S REWARD,' in memory of this celebrated occasion."

"I hope," said the Marquis, "you'll find Loyalty's Reward, since you call him so, practised in all the duties of the field, --but I must just hint to you, that at this time, in Scotland, loyalty is more frequently rewarded with a halter than with a horse."

"Ahem! your Excellency is pleased to be facetious. Loyalty's Reward is as perfect as Gustavus in all his exercises, and of a far finer figure. Marry! his social qualities are less cultivated, in respect he has kept till now inferior company."

"Not meaning his Excellency the General, I hope," said Lord

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 Rinkitink In Oz by L. Frank Baum:

the cloth from the pointed toe took out the Pink Pearl -- the one which protected from any harm the person who carried it.

"Where can you put it, to keep it safely?" he asked.

"In my vest pocket," replied the King. "The pocket has a flap to it and I can pin it down in such a way that the pearl cannot get out and become lost. As for robbery, no one with evil intent can touch my person while I have the pearl."

So Inga gave Rinkitink the Pink Pearl and the little King placed it in the pocket of his red-and-green

Rinkitink In Oz