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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Taylors kinder than can be imagined. The other day, Lady Taylor drove over and called on me; she is a delightful old lady, and great fun. I mentioned a story about the Duchess of Wellington which I had heard Sir Henry tell; and though he was very tired, he looked it up and copied it out for me in his own hand. - Your most affectionate son,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Letter: TO C. W. STODDARD

SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, FEB. 13TH, 1886.

MY DEAR STODDARD, - I am a dreadful character; but, you see, I have at last taken pen in hand; how long I may hold it, God knows. This

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis:

the floor still saying that he wouldn't. That lad was weaker than the leader. He went wherever he was led. The leader was a boy who made his own decisions. He was ashamed of calling off the strike, but he did it because he felt the strike was wrong.

This is the Mooseheart idea of education. Every boy must use his own judgment. He faces every fact that he will face in life, and by the time he is eighteen his judgment is as ripe as that of the much older average man. The Mooseheart boys are not selected students. They come from the humblest families, from homes that have been wiped out early. But the training at Mooseheart is so well adapted to human needs that these orphans soon outstrip the

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:

afterwards, having got his address from the printseller, and found a pale, interesting young man, with a rather common-looking wife - his model, as I subsequently learned. I told him how much I admired his drawings, at which he seemed very pleased, and I asked him if he would show me some of his other work. As we were looking over a portfolio, full of really very lovely things, - for Merton had a most delicate and delightful touch, - I suddenly caught sight of a drawing of the picture of Mr. W. H. There was no doubt whatever about it. It was almost a FACSIMILE - the only difference being that the two masks of Tragedy and Comedy were not suspended from the marble table as they are in the picture, but were lying on

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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic:

The formalities of this final transfer of shares had been dictated to the former, and he had gone off on the business, before the Broker arrived.

Thorpe stood waiting near the door, and held out his hand with a dramatically significant gesture when the little Scotchman entered. "Put her there!" he exclaimed heartily, with an exuberant reversion to the slang of remote transatlantic bonhomie.

"Yeh've done it, then!" said Semple, his sharp face softening with pleasure at the news. "Yeh've pulled it off at twenty-three!"

The Market-Place