Today's Stichomancy for V. I. Lenin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

as I told you, his actions of the evening before having been so peculiar - and as I knew that he was not in the happiest frame of mind - I naturally thought of suicide at once, when they told me that he had been found shot dead. Then they told me that the appearance of the room and many other things, proved suicide to have been out of the question. I know nothing more about it. I cannot think any more about it. I know only that I am here in danger of being sentenced for the crime that I never committed - that is enough to keep any man's mind busy." He leaned back with an intense fatigue in every line of his face and figure.

Muller rose from his seat. "I am afraid I have tired you, Mr.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield:

head."

"There," she cried, "now you see your dependence on Germany. Not even an efficient waiter can you have by yourselves."

"But I prefer them to look over your head."

"And that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice."

I looked out over the garden full of wall-flowers and standard rose-trees growing stiffly like German bouquets, feeling I did not care one way or the other. I rather wanted to ask her if the young friend had gone to England in the capacity of waiter to attend the funeral baked meats, but decided it was not worth it. The weather was too hot to be malicious, and who could be uncharitable, victimised by the flapping sensations which Frau Fischer

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

But why he said so strange a thing No Warder dared to ask: For he to whom a watcher's doom Is given as his task, Must set a lock upon his lips, And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try To comfort or console: And what should Human Pity do Pent up in Murderers' Hole? What word of grace in such a place

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 Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain:

I says:

"'There's one place we hain't searched.'

"'What place is that?' he says.

"'His stomach.'

"'By gracious, I never thought of that! NOW we're on the homestretch, to a dead moral certainty. How'll we manage?'

"'Well,' I says, 'just stay by him till I turn out and hunt up a drug store, and I reckon I'll fetch something that'll make them di'monds tired of the company they're keeping.'

"He said that's the ticket, and with him looking straight at me I slid myself into Bud's boots instead of my own,