Today's Stichomancy for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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

JACK. Yes. The Brighton line.

LADY BRACKNELL. The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion - has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now-but it could hardly be regarded as an assured

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard:

Telling Umslopogaas to wait, I tumbled into my clothes and went off with him to Sir Henry's room, where the Zulu repeated his story word for word. It was a sight to watch Curtis' face as he heard it.

'Great Heavens!' he said: 'here have I been sleeping away while Nyleptha was nearly murdered -- and all through me, too. What a fiend that Sorais must be! It would have served her well if Umslopogaas had cut her down in the act.'

'Ay,' said the Zulu. 'Fear not; I should have slain her ere she struck. I was but waiting the moment.

I said nothing, but I could not help thinking that many a thousand

Allan Quatermain

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic:

son-in-law. He has large estates in one of the healthiest and most beautiful parts; he has a palace, and more money than he knows what to do with--but it seems that he's not my son-in-law. I could do with Italy very well--but that doesn't enter into anyone's calculations. No! let the worn-out old soldier sell boot-laces on the kerb! That's the spirit of woman-kind. And my daughter Edith--does she care what becomes of me? Listen to me--I secured for her the very greatest marriage in England. She would have been Duchess of Glastonbury today if her husband had not played the fool and drowned himself."

The Market-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 Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso:

LXVII "Thy sign is in his Apogaeon placed, And when it moveth next, must needs descend, Chance in uncertain, fortune double faced, Smiling at first, she frowneth in the end: Beware thine honor be not then disgraced, Take heed thou mar not when thou think'st to mend, For this the folly is of Fortune's play, 'Gainst doubtful, certain; much, 'gainst small to lay.

LXVIII "Yet still we sail while prosperous blows the wind,