Today's Stichomancy for Leon Trotsky

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde:

As purple as a wound upon Christ's side. Wine merely is it? I have heard it said When wine is spilt blood is spilt also, But that's a foolish tale.

My lord, I trust My grape is to your liking? The wine of Naples Is fiery like its mountains. Our Tuscan vineyards Yield a more wholesome juice.

GUIDO. I like it well, Honest Simone; and, with your good leave, Will toast the fair Bianca when her lips

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall:

then after two, four, and six reflections. These corresponded to the passage of the ray once, three times, five times, and seven times through the glass. He thus established with numerical accuracy the exact proportionality of the rotation to the distance traversed by the polarized beam. Thus in one series of experiments where the rotation required by the direct beam was 12degrees, that acquired by three passages through the glass was 36degrees, while that acquired by five passages was 60degrees. But even when this method of magnifying was applied, he failed with various solid substances to obtain any effect; and in the case of air, though he employed to the utmost the power which these repeated reflections placed in his

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac:

for groom, a little Circassian for a mistress, and an Arab horse! Yes, Ali Tebelen, pacha of Janina, is too little known; he needs an historian. It is only in the East one meets with such iron souls, who can nurse a vengeance twenty years and accomplish it some fine morning. He had the most magnificent white beard that was ever seen, and a hard, stern face--"

"But what did you do with your treasures?" asked farmer Leger.

"Ha! that's it! you may well ask that! Those fellows down there haven't any Grand Livre nor any Bank of France. So I was forced to carry off my windfalls in a felucca, which was captured by the Turkish High-Admiral himself. Such as you see me here to-day, I came very near

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 An International Episode by Henry James:

of which their attendant offered them a very long list. After dinner they went out and slowly walked about the neighboring streets. The early dusk of waning summer was coming on, but the heat was still very great. The pavements were hot even to the stout boot soles of the British travelers, and the trees along the curbstone emitted strange exotic odors. The young men wandered through the adjoining square--that queer place without palings, and with marble walks arranged in black and white lozenges. There were a great many benches, crowded with shabby-looking people, and the travelers remarked, very justly, that it was not much like Belgrave Square. On one side was an enormous hotel, lifting up into the hot darkness an immense array of open, brightly lighted windows.