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 Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells:

any man to purge from his mind the idea that he is not primarily a Jew, a Teuton, or a Kelt, but a man. You can persuade any one in five minutes that he or she belongs to some special and blessed and privileged sort of human being; it takes a lifetime to destroy that persuasion. There are these confounded differences of colour, of eye and brow, of nose or hair, small differences in themselves except that they give a foothold and foundation for tremendous fortifications of prejudice and tradition, in which hostilities and hatreds may gather. When I think of a Jew's nose, a Chinaman's eyes or a negro's colour I am reminded of that fatal little pit which nature has left in the vermiform appendix, a thing no use in itself

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

rusted, because I had forgotten to oil them. There I stood, unable to move hand or foot. And there I continued to stand -- while days came and went -- until Dorothy and the Scarecrow came along and rescued me. They oiled my joints and set me free, and I've taken good care never to rust again."

"Who was this Dorothy?" questioned the Wanderer.

"A little girl who happened to be in a house when it was carried by a cyclone all the way from Kansas to the Land of Oz. When the house fell, in the Munchkin Country, it fortunately landed on the Wicked Witch and

The Tin Woodman of Oz

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri:

behaviour.

On the continent of Europe another form has been adopted. There is no supervision by a special officer, and no surety for good behaviour; judgment is delivered and sentence pronounced; and the suspension is not forfeited by disorderly conduct, but only by an actual relapse.

This system, so far as the purpose was not effected by various conditions as to the duration of punishment, which left room for conditional sentences, as to the interval for taking cognisance of relapse, and other details, was proposed in France (1884) by Senator Brenger; but Belgium was the first country to adopt it

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 The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

And left me swathed around with such a veil Of its effulgence, that I nothing saw.

"Ever the Love which quieteth this heaven Welcomes into itself with such salute, To make the candle ready for its flame."

No sooner had within me these brief words An entrance found, than I perceived myself To be uplifted over my own power,

And I with vision new rekindled me, Such that no light whatever is so pure But that mine eyes were fortified against it.

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)