Today's Stichomancy for Leonard Cohen

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley:

to begin.

You well know, Victor, that our union had been the favourite plan of your parents ever since our infancy. We were told this when young, and taught to look forward to it as an event that would certainly take place. We were affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I believe, dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older. But as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each other without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our case? Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you by our mutual happiness, with simple truth--Do you not love another?

Frankenstein

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling:

this makes things much more wonderful than any magic herb. Rikki-tikki knew he was a young mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased to think that he had managed to escape a blow from behind. It gave him confidence in himself, and when Teddy came running down the path, Rikki-tikki was ready to be petted.

But just as Teddy was stooping, something wriggled a little in the dust, and a tiny voice said: "Be careful. I am Death!" It was Karait, the dusty brown snakeling that lies for choice on the dusty earth; and his bite is as dangerous as the cobra's. But he is so small that nobody thinks of him, and so he does the more harm to people.

The Jungle Book

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:

"You should have seen the way they took to me. It was 'Mr. Thorpe' here and 'Mr. Thorpe' there, all over the place. Ladies of title, mind you--all to myself at breakfast two days running. And such ladies--finer than silk. Oh, it's clear as daylight--I was intended for a fashionable career."

She smiled in a faint, passive way. "Well--they say 'better late than never,' you know." "And after all, IS it so very late?" he said, adopting her phrase as an expression of his thought. "I'm just turned forty, and I feel like a boy. I was looking at that 'Peerage' there,

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 The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:

And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

Lone in the light of that magical grove, I felt the stars of the spirits of Love Gather and gleam round my delicate youth, And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth; To quench my longing I bent me low By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow In that magical wood in the land of sleep.