Today's Stichomancy for Leo Tolstoy

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville:

approximates to the aristocracy of birth by conferring great privileges on a small number of persons; it so far belongs to the democratic element, that these privileges may be successively acquired by all. It frequently forms a natural transition between these two conditions of society, and it is difficult to say whether it closes the reign of aristocratic institutions, or whether it already opens the new era of democracy.]

In democratic countries, where money does not lead those who possess it to political power, but often removes them from it, the rich do not know how to spend their leisure. They are driven into active life by the inquietude and the greatness of their

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

things. The human being alone has the consciousness of truth and justice and love, which is the consciousness of God. And the soul becoming more conscious of these, becomes more conscious of her own immortality.

10. The last ground of our belief in immortality, and the strongest, is the perfection of the divine nature. The mere fact of the existence of God does not tend to show the continued existence of man. An evil God or an indifferent God might have had the power, but not the will, to preserve us. He might have regarded us as fitted to minister to his service by a succession of existences,--like the animals, without attributing to each soul an incomparable value. But if he is perfect, he must will that all rational beings should partake of that perfection which he himself is. In

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon:

The quarters should be broad and fleshy in correspondence with the sides and chest, and if they are also firm and solid throughout they will be all the lighter for the racecourse, and will render the horse in every way more fleet.

To come to the thighs (and buttocks):[27] if the horse have these separated by a broad line of demarcation[28] he will be able to plant his hind-legs under him with a good gap between;[29] and in so doing will assume a posture[30] and a gait in action at once prouder and more firmly balanced, and in every way appear to the best advantage.

[27] Lit. "the thighs beneath the tail."

[28] Reading {plateia to gramme diorismenous ekhe}, sc. the perineum.

On Horsemanship

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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Muckle I saw, and muckle kent!

Between the beach and the sea-hill I sat my lane and grat my fill - I was sae clarty and hard and dark, And like the kye in the cow park!

There fell a battle far in the north; The evil news gaed back and forth, And back and forth by brae and bent Hider and hunter cam and went: The hunter clattered horse-shoe-airn By causey-crest and hill-top cairn;