Today's Stichomancy for T. S. Eliot

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac:

of the former's political fortune, and also that of his brother. In 1806 Malin had him appointed chief justice of an imperial court, and after the creation of tax-collectors his brother obtained the post of receiver-general for the department of the Aube. The State Councillor told Marion to stay in Paris, and he warned the minister of police, who gave orders that Michu should be secretly watched. Not wishing to push the man to extremes, Malin kept him on as bailiff, under the iron rule of Grevin the notary of Arcis.

From that moment Michu became more absorbed and taciturn than ever, and obtained the reputation of a man who was capable of committing a crime. Malin, the Councillor of State (a function which the First

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale:

Down the hill I went, and then I forgot the ways of men, For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool Wakened ecstasy in me On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup You have made me drunk and wild Ever since I was a child, But when have I been sure as now That no bitterness can bend And no sorrow wholly bow

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters:

And laugh thy grief to scorn; I hear the great Redeemer say, "Blessed are ye that mourn."

Hold on thy course, nor deem it strange That earthly cords are riven: Man may lament the wondrous change, But "there is joy in heaven!"

MUSIC ON CHRISTMAS MORNING.

Music I love--but never strain Could kindle raptures so divine, So grief assuage, so conquer pain,

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 Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Said he. "Behold a ruin who meant well."

He led me down familiar steps again, Appealingly, and set me in a chair. "My dreams have all come true to other men," Said he; "God lives, however, and why care?

"An hour among the ghosts will do no harm." He laughed, and something glad within me sank. I may have eyed him with a faint alarm, For now his laugh was lost in what he drank.

"They chill things here with ice from hell," he said; "I might have known it." And he made a face