Today's Stichomancy for Vladimir Putin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Curse God and die.

Or maybe there, like many another one Who might have stood aloft and looked ahead, Black-drawn against wild red, He may have built, unawed by fiery gules That in him no commotion stirred, A living reason out of molecules Why molecules occurred, And one for smiling when he might have sighed Had he seen far enough, And in the same inevitable stuff

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells:

of many of the latter-day workers. Such as he saw at work were noticeably inferior in physique to the few gaily dressed managers and forewomen who were directing their labours. The burly labourers of the Victorian times had followed the dray horse and all such living force producers, to extinction; the place of his costly muscles was taken by some dexterous machine. The latter-day labourer, male as well as female, was essentially a machine-minder and feeder, a servant and attendant, or an artist under direction.

The women, in comparison with those Graham

When the Sleeper Wakes

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau:

not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight through useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail in their village.

It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the jail window, "How do ye do?" My neighbors did

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

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 Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare:

FIRST SERVANT. And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face, She was the fairest creature in the world; And yet she is inferior to none.

SLY. Am I a lord? and have I such a lady? Or do I dream? Or have I dream'd till now? I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak; I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things: Upon my life, I am a lord indeed;

The Taming of the Shrew