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 The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin:

produce sickness in the flock.

[4] Travels in Australia, vol. i. p. 154. I must express my obligation to Sir T. Mitchell, for several interesting personal communications on the subject of these great valleys of New South Wales.

[5] I was interested by finding here the hollow conical pitfall of the lion-ant, or some other insect; first a fly fell down the treacherous slope and immediately disappeared; then came a large but unwary ant; its struggles to escape being very violent, those curious little jets of sand, described by Kirby and Spence (Entomol., vol. i. p. 425) as being flirted by the insect's

The Voyage of the Beagle

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare:

Holla, within!

[Enter a SERVANT.]

Sirrah, lead these gentlemen To my two daughters, and tell them both These are their tutors: bid them use them well.

[Exit SERVANT, with HORTENSIO, LUCENTIO, and BIONDELLO.]

We will go walk a little in the orchard, And then to dinner. You are passing welcome, And so I pray you all to think yourselves.

PETRUCHIO. Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,

The Taming of the Shrew

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

in the Land of Oz. He made a more careful examination of his visitor, and soon discovered that Jack's features were carved into a smile and that he could not look grave if he wished to.

The King was the first to speak. After regarding

73 Line-Art Drawing

Jack for some minutes he said, in a tone of wonder:

"Where on earth did you come from, and how do you happen to be alive?"

"I beg your Majesty's pardon," returned the Pumpkinhead; "but I do not understand you."

"What don't you understand?" asked the Scarecrow.

The Marvelous Land of Oz

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 Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon:

less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations,

Essays of Francis Bacon