Today's Stichomancy for Ian McKellan

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

ning with Kazbek and ending with two-peaked Elbruz. . . Blithe is life in such a land! A feeling akin to rapture is diffused through all my veins. The air is pure and fresh, like the kiss of a child; the sun is bright, the sky is blue -- what more could one possibly wish for? What need, in such a place as this, of passions, desires, regrets?

[1] Pushkin. Compare Shelley's Adonais, xxxi. 3: "as the last cloud of an expiring storm."

However, it is time to be stirring. I will go to the Elizaveta spring -- I am told that the whole

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson:

upright beam of the beacon was to be fixed to the rock by two strong and massive bats or stanchions of iron. These bats, for the fixture of the principal and diagonal beams and bracing chains, required fifty-four holes, each measuring two inches in diameter and eighteen inches in depth. There had already been so considerable a progress made in boring and excavating the holes that the writer's hopes of getting the beacon erected this year began to be more and more confirmed, although it was now advancing towards what was considered the latter end of the proper working season at the Bell Rock. The foreman joiner, Mr. Francis Watt, was accordingly appointed to

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

addition to these the foreign contingent under Herippidas;[12] and again the quota furnished by the Hellenic cities in Asia, with others from the cities in Europe which he had brought over during his progress; and lastly, there were additional levies from the spot-- Orchomenian and Phocian heavy infantry. In light-armed troops, it must be admitted, the numbers told heavily in favour of Agesilaus, but the cavalry[13] on both sides were fairly balanced.

[10] Lit. "a mora"; for the numbers, see "Ages." ii. 6; Plut. "Ages." 17; Grote, "H. G." ix. 433.

[11] I.e. "enfranchised helots."

[12] See "Ages." ii. 10, 11; and above, "Hell." III. iv. 20.

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 Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome:

the general attitude to that Note, see page 44.)

I then met Voznesensky (Left Social Revolutionary), of the Oriental Department, bursting with criticism of the Bolshevik attitude towards his party. He secured a ticket for me to get dinner in the Metropole. This ticket I had to surrender when I got a room in the National. The dinner consisted of a plate of soup, and a very small portion of something else. There are National Kitchens in different parts of the town supplying similar meals. Glasses of weak tea were sold at 30 kopecks each, without sugar. My sister had sent me a small bottle of saccharine just before I left