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 Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy:

not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need. . .not as a call to battle. . . though embattled we are. . .but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle. . .year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation. . .a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny. . .poverty. . .disease. . .and war itself. Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance. . .North and South. . . East and West. . .that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger; I do not shrink from this responsibility. . .I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us

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

Whom you may say (if't please you) Fleans kill'd, For Fleans fled: Men must not walke too late. Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous It was for Malcolme, and for Donalbane To kill their gracious Father? Damned Fact, How it did greeue Macbeth? Did he not straight In pious rage, the two delinquents teare, That were the Slaues of drinke, and thralles of sleepe? Was not that Nobly done? I, and wisely too: For 'twould haue anger'd any heart aliue To heare the men deny't. So that I say,

Macbeth

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare:

HUMBER. Was ever land so fruitless as this land? Was ever grove so graceless as this grove? Was ever soil so barren as this soil? Oh no: the land where hungry Fames dwelt May no wise equalize this cursed land; No, even the climate of the torrid zone Brings forth more fruit than this accursed grove. Ne'er came sweet Ceres, ne'er came Venus here; Triptolemus, the god of husbandmen, Ne'er sowed his seed in this foul wilderness.

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 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens:

case of need, are always ready to help you. My friend is in a more destitute and desolate situation than most men, and, you and he being linked together in a common cause, he naturally looks to you to assist him. He has boarded and lodged with me a long time (for as I said just now, I am very soft-hearted), and I quite approve of his entertaining this opinion. You have always had a roof over your head; he has always been an outcast. You have your son to comfort and assist you; he has nobody at all. The advantages must not be all one side. You are in the same boat, and we must divide the ballast a little more equally.'

She was about to speak, but he checked her, and went on.

Barnaby Rudge