Today's Stichomancy for Joseph Stalin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx:

wage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production, all these proposals, point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognised in their earliest, indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore, are of a purely Utopian character.

The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism

The Communist Manifesto

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac:

"He's one of the pistons of the big engine called 'Commerce,'" said poor Butscha, whose clever mind made itself felt occasionally by such little sayings timidly jerked out.

The four Latournelles bowed with the most respectful deference to an old lady dressed in black velvet, who did not rise from the armchair in which she was seated, for the reason that both eyes were covered with the yellow film produced by cataract. Madame Mignon may be sketched in one sentence. Her august countenance of the mother of a family attracted instant notice as that of one whose irreproachable life defies the assaults of destiny, which nevertheless makes her the target of its arrows and a member of the unnumbered tribe of Niobes.

Modeste Mignon

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe:

Stourbridge.

It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from the side of the river Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile square.

If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents, for all the fair is kept in tents and booths. On the other hand, to balance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their business of the fair, and removed and cleared the field by another certain day in September, the ploughmen may come in again, with

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 Jolly Corner by Henry James:

situations, minutes for hours) and the strange air of the streets was but the weak, the sullen flush of a dawn in which everything was still locked up. His choked appeal from his own open window had been the sole note of life, and he could but break off at last as for a worse despair. Yet while so deeply demoralised he was capable again of an impulse denoting - at least by his present measure - extraordinary resolution; of retracing his steps to the spot where he had turned cold with the extinction of his last pulse of doubt as to there being in the place another presence than his own. This required an effort strong enough to sicken him; but he had his reason, which over-mastered for the moment everything else.