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 Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton:

when we are so fortunate as to be all together, senor, we cannot bear to be separated. My oldest brother, alas--Ignacio--is studying for holy or- ders in Mexico, and my sister Isabel visits at the Presidio of Santa Barbara. I beg that you will be seated, Excellency." And he continued the intro- duction to the lesser luminaries, with equal cour- tesy but fewer periods.

Rezanov exchanged a few pleasant words with his smiling hostess before she returned to her dis- tracted maids preparing the dinner; but his eyes

Rezanov

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf:

distinctly steps descending the staircase, and Katharine went straight to the door.

"Wait," Mr. Hilbery commanded. "I wish to speak to you--alone," he added.

She paused, holding the door ajar.

"I'll come back," she said, and as she spoke she opened the door and went out. They could hear her immediately speak to some one outside, though the words were inaudible.

Mr. Hilbery was left confronting the guilty couple, who remained standing as if they did not accept their dismissal, and the disappearance of Katharine had brought some change into the situation.

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

word, a Saratoga trunk. Until this moment I have never been able to conceive the utility of these erections; but then I began to have a glimmer. Whether it was for convenience in the slave trade, or to obviate the results of too ready an employment of the bowie- knife, I cannot bring myself to decide. But one thing I see plainly - the object of such a box is to contain a human body.

"Surely," cried Silas, "surely this is not a time for jesting."

"Although I may express myself with some degree of pleasantry," replied the Doctor, "the purport of my words is entirely serious. And the first thing we have to do, my young friend, is to empty your coffer of all that it contains."

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 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner:

money for a Latin Grammar and Algebra, and carry them about in our pockets, poring over them as over our Bible of old. We have thought we were utterly stupid, incapable of remembering anything, of learning anything. Now we find that all is easy. Has a new soul crept into this old body, that even our intellectual faculties are changed? We marvel; not perceiving that what a man expends in prayer and ecstasy he cannot have over for acquiring knowledge. You never shed a tear, or create a beautiful image, or quiver with emotion, but you pay for it at the practical, calculating end of your nature. You have just so much force: when the one channel runs over the other runs dry.

And now we turn to Nature. All these years we have lived beside her, and