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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton:

The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps, And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps When the cross darkens her unclouded skies?

Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee, Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain, And think--"My child at home clings so to me, With the same smile . . . and yet in vain, in vain, Since even this Jesus died on Calvary"-- Say to her then: "He also rose again."

THE TOMB OF ILARIA GIUNIGI.

ILARIA, thou that wert so fair and dear

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

He paused a moment. Andre-Louis stood rigid listening and wondering. So, too, the others. Then M. le Marquis resumed, on a note of less assurance. "In the matter of Mlle. Binet I was unfortunate. I wronged you through inadvertence. I had no knowledge of the relations between you."

Andre-Louis interrupted him 'sharply at last with a question: "Would it have made a difference if you had?"

"No," he was answered frankly. "I have the faults of my kind. I cannot pretend that any such scruple as you suggest would have weighed with me. But can you - if you are capable of any detached judgment - blame me very much for that?"

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

Our men was good old trusties -- They'd done it on their 'ead; But you ought to 'ave 'eard 'em markin' time To 'ide the things 'e said! For it was "Right flank -- wheel!" for "'Alt, an' stand at ease!" An' "Left extend!" for "Centre close!" O marker, shut your eye! An' it was, "'Ere, sir, 'ere! before the Colonel sees!" So he needed affidavits pretty badly by-an'-by. There was two-an'-thirty sergeants,

Verses 1889-1896

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 Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey:

unintelligible bitterness.

Then she rested with closed eyes, and time seemed neither short nor long. When Stewart called her she opened her eyes to see the gray of dawn. She rose and stepped outside. The horses whinnied. In a moment she was in the saddle, aware of cramped muscles and a weariness of limbs. Stewart led off at a sharp trot into the fir forest. They came to a trail into which be turned. The horses traveled steadily; the descent grew less steep; the firs thinned out; the gray gloom brightened.

When Madeline rode out of the firs the sun had arisen and the foothills rolled beneath her; and at their edge, where the gray

The Light of Western Stars