Today's Stichomancy for Louis Armstrong

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale:

And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom Sheltered us, While your kisses and the flowers, Falling, falling, Tangled my hair. . . .

The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.

And now, far off In the fragrant darkness The tree is tremulous again with bloom, For June comes back.

To-night what girl

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde:

to-day, and that at all costs it must not reach him. [Goes to the door, and opens it.] Oh! Robert is coming upstairs with the letter in his hand. It has reached him already.

LADY CHILTERN. [With a cry of pain.] Oh! you have saved his life; what have you done with mine?

[Enter SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. He has the letter in his hand, and is reading it. He comes towards his wife, not noticing LORD GORING'S presence.]

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. 'I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude.' Oh, my love! Is this true? Do you indeed trust me, and want me? If so, it was for me to come to you, not for you to write

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving:

mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeard. "If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, " I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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 Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft:

sitting by Mr. Bancroft, leant forward and said to her husband, "WE can bring bushels of corn this year to England." "Who do you mean by WE?" said he. "Why, we Americans, to be sure."

Monday Evening

Yesterday we dined at Count St. Aulair's, the French Ambassador, who is a charming old man of the old French school, at a sort of amicable dinner given to Lord and Lady Palmerston. Lord John Russell was of the party, with the Russian Ambassador and lady, Mr. and Madam Van de Weyer, the Prussian and Turkish Ministers. The house of the French Embassy is fine, but these formal grand dinners are not so charming as the small ones. The present state of feeling