Today's Stichomancy for Leo Tolstoy

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake:

And all shall say, without a use this shining women liv'd, Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms.

The Cloud reclind upon his airy throne and answerd thus.

Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies, How great thy use, how great thy blessing, every thing that lives. Lives not alone nor or itself: fear not and I will call, The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice. Come forth worm and the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.

The helpless worm arose and sat upon the Lillys leaf, And the bright Cloud saild on, to find his partner in the vale.

III.

Poems of William Blake

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

Her bosom, which thou seest not (for each hair On that side grows) was Manto, she who search'd Through many regions, and at length her seat Fix'd in my native land, whence a short space My words detain thy audience. When her sire From life departed, and in servitude The city dedicate to Bacchus mourn'd, Long time she went a wand'rer through the world. Aloft in Italy's delightful land A lake there lies, at foot of that proud Alp, That o'er the Tyrol locks Germania in,

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale:

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me The cold and sparkling silver of the sea -- We two will pass through death and ages lengthen Before you hear that sound again with me.

On the Dunes

If there is any life when death is over, These tawny beaches will know much of me, I shall come back, as constant and as changeful As the unchanging, many-colored sea.

If life was small, if it has made me scornful, Forgive me; I shall straighten like a flame

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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

to now, to know what love is. But mind, don't hurt him; he's a dear boy. I'm half in love with him myself, and Dallas trots around at his heels like a poodle."

But all Anne's geese are swans, so I thought little of the Harbison man except to hope that he played respectable bridge, and wouldn't mark the cards with a steel spring under his finger nail, as one of her "finds" had done.

We all arrived about the same time, and Anne and I went upstairs together to take off our wraps in what had been Bella's dressing room. It was Anne who noticed the violets.

"Look at that!" she nudged me, when the maid was examining her