Today's Stichomancy for Joseph Stalin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac:

consuls who were playing cards in the salon. Cambaceres and Lebrun were then at the mercy of their ministers, men who were infinitely stronger than they.

"Nearly all these statesmen are dead, and no secrecy is due to them. They belong to history; and the history of that night and its consequences has been terrible. I tell it to you now because I alone know it; because Louis XVIII. never revealed the truth to that poor Madame de Cinq-Cygne; and because the present government which I serve is wholly indifferent as to whether the truth be known to the world or not.

"All four of these personages sat down in the boudoir. The lame man

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

the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth, Anno. Domini, 1620.

Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow Isaac Allerton Edmund Margesson Miles Standish Peter Brown John Alden Richard Bitteridge John Turner George Soule Francis Eaton Edward Tilly

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

Till to her own grave plot she came, & there she sat down. And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit.

Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction? Or the glistening Eye to the poison of a smile! Why are Eyelids stord with arrows ready drawn, Where a thousand fighting men in ambush lie! Or an Eye of gifts & graces showring fruits & coined gold!

Why a Tongue impress'd with honey from every wind? Why an Ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in? Why a Nostril wide inhaling terror trembling & affright Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy?

Poems of William Blake

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 Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

now full of his own spirit, and then turned suddenly to the standard-bearer, who stood close behind him.

"Officer, lower your banner!" said he.

The officer obeyed; and, brandishing his sword, Endicott thrust it through the cloth, and, with his left hand, rent the Red Cross completely out of the banner. He then waved the tattered ensign above his head.

"Sacrilegious wretch!" cried the high-churchman in the pillory, unable longer to restrain himself, "thou hast rejected the symbol of our holy religion!"

"Treason, treason!" roared the royalist in the stocks. "He hath

Twice Told Tales