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 The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy:

any of the village girls.

"Have you taken a fancy to some one, then?"

"I would marry you, if you'd be willing."

"Get along with you, Alyosha the Pot; but you've found your tongue, haven't you?" she ex- claimed, slapping him on the back with a towel she held in her hand. "Why shouldn't I?"

At Shrovetide Alyosha's father came to town for his wages. It had come to the ears of the mer- chant's wife that Alyosha wanted to marry Ustinia, and she disapproved of it. "What will be the

The Forged Coupon

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon:

say it naturally pertains to you to find yourselves much more beloved than ordinary mortals; or if not, why not?

Hiero took up the challenge and without demur made answer: For this good reason, best of poets, necessity constrains us, far more than ordinary people, to be busybodies. We are forced to meddle with concerns which are the very fount and springhead of half the hatreds of mankind.

We have moneys to exact if we would meet our necessary expenses. Guards must be impressed and sentinels posted wherever there is need of watch and ward. We have to chastise evil-doers; we must put a stop to those who would wax insolent.[17] And when the season for swift

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James:

They were surmounted with old faded painted escutcheons, and here and there, in the spaces between them, brown pictures, which I perceived to be bad, in battered frames, were suspended. With the exception of several straw-bottomed chairs with their backs to the wall, the grand obscure vista contained nothing else to minister to effect. It was evidently never used save as a passage, and little even as that. I may add that by the time the door opened again through which the maidservant had escaped, my eyes had grown used to the want of light.

I had not meant by my private ejaculation that I must myself cultivate

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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke:

any definite way. They say the missionaries have done a good deal to open the way for trade; perhaps--but they have also gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. Yet I give to them--a little--it is a matter of conscience with me to identify myself with all the enterprises of the Church; it is the mainstay of social order and a prosperous civilization. But the best forms of benevolence are the well-established, organized ones here at home, where people