Today's Stichomancy for David Bowie

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau:

"The false society of men -- -- for earthly greatness All heavenly comforts rarefies to air."

And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. As I understand it, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which Minerva made, that she "had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided"; and it may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves. I know one or

Walden

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot:

which you call Space, and in the true Space, where I can see things as they are. And at this moment I can see your Line, or side -- or inside as you are pleased to call it; and I can see also the Men and Women on the North and South of you, whom I will now enumerate, describing their order, their size, and the interval between each."

My body just before I disappeared +---------+ |\ \ \ \ \| |\ \ \ \ \|

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

BALFOUR is quite unavoidable. PRINCE OTTO I don't think I could say anything about, and BLACK ARROW don't want to. But it is probable I could say something to the volume of TRAVELS. In the verse business I can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend UNDERWOODS with a lot of unpublished stuff. APROPOS, if I were to get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply photographs of the illustrations - and the poems are of Vailima and the family - I should much like to

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 Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane:

ward the place of the fighting, they could of course comprehend a greater amount of the bat- tle than when their visions had been blurred by the hurling smoke of the line. They could see dark stretches winding along the land, and on one cleared space there was a row of guns mak- ing gray clouds, which were filled with large flashes of orange-colored flame. Over some foli- age they could see the roof of a house. One win- dow, glowing a deep murder red, shone squarely through the leaves. From the edifice a tall lean-

The Red Badge of Courage