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 Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris:

it."

"Darn you!" shouted Moran in a blaze of fury, "right to it, right to it! If I haven't, who has? Who found it? Those dirty monkeys might have stood some show to a claim if they'd held to the one- third bargain, and offered to divvy with us when they got me where I couldn't help myself. I don't say I'd give in now if they had-- give in to let 'em walk off with a hundred thousand dollars that I've got as good a claim to as they have! But they've saved me the trouble of arguing the question. They've taken it all, all! And there's no bargain in the game at all now. Now the stuff belongs to the strongest of us, and I'm glad of it. They thought they

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson:

long. De Coetlogon protested, as he did afterwards in writing, against Knappe's claim: the Samoans were in a state of war; they had territorial rights; it was monstrous to prevent them from entering one of their own villages because a German trader kept the store; and in case property suffered, a claim for compensation was the proper remedy. Knappe argued that this was a question between Germans and Samoans, in which de Coetlogon had nothing to see; and that he must protect German property according to his instructions. To which de Coetlogon replied that he was himself in the same attitude to the property of the British; that he understood Knappe to be intending hostilities against Laulii; that Laulii was

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

no attempt to attack them and seemed quite as surprised by the meeting as they were.

"I wonder," whispered Trot, "what it is."

"Who, me?" exclaimed the creature in a shrill, high- pitched voice. "Why, I'm an Ork."

"Oh!" said the girl. "But what is an Ork?"

"I am," he repeated, a little proudly, as he shook the water from his funny wings; "and if ever an Ork was glad to be out of the water and on dry land again, you can be mighty sure that I'm that especial, individual Ork!"

The Scarecrow of Oz

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 Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare:

Which after him she darts, as one on shore Gazing upon a late-embarked friend, Till the wild waves will have him seen no more, Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend: 820 So did the merciless and pitchy night Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

Whereat amaz'd, as one that unaware Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood, 824 Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are, Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood; Even so confounded in the dark she lay,