Today's Stichomancy for Hugo Chavez

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

was lighted the next evening.

You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, touching our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, may be reached by means of very insignificant premises. This is eminently true of manners and forms of speech; a movement or a phrase often tells you all you want to know about a person. Thus, "How's your health?" (commonly pronounced HAALTH) - instead of, How do you do? or, How are you? Or calling your little dark entry a "hall," and your old rickety one-horse wagon a "kerridge." Or telling a person who has been trying to please you that he has given you pretty good "sahtisfahction." Or saying that you "remember of" such a thing,

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

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

disorder to the motion which had prevailed under his dispensation, he set them in order and restored them, and made the world imperishable and immortal. And this is the whole tale, of which the first part will suffice to illustrate the nature of the king. For when the world turned towards the present cycle of generation, the age of man again stood still, and a change opposite to the previous one was the result. The small creatures which had almost disappeared grew in and stature, and the newly-born children of the earth became grey and died and sank into the earth again. All things changed, imitating and following the condition of the universe, and of necessity agreeing with that in their mode of conception and generation and nurture; for no animal was any longer allowed to come into

Statesman

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon:

[18] "Recognisable for the better."

[19] "They are not famous but infamous"; "the bad fare as their name suggests" (i.e. badly).

[20] "Recognisable for the worse."

[21] Or, "what with private extortionsand public peculation."

[22] {ton idioton}, "laymen," I suppose, as opposed to "professional" lawyers or politicians.

[23] "What with their incapacity for hard work, their physique for purposes of war is a mockery and a sham."

[24] Cf. Plat. "Soph."

[25] Or, "earns but an evil reputation in the world."

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 Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy:

the packet-boat. Can you meet me with the letters and other trifles? I shall be in the coach which changes horses at the Antelope Hotel at half-past five Wednesday evening; I shall be wearing a Paisley shawl with a red centre, and thus may easily be found. I should prefer this plan of receiving them to having them sent.--I remain still, yours; ever,

LUCETTA

Henchard breathed heavily. "Poor thing--better you had not known me! Upon my heart and soul, if ever I should be left in a position to carry out that marriage with thee, I OUGHT to do it--I ought to do it, indeed!"

The Mayor of Casterbridge