Today's Stichomancy for Bob Dylan

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll:

Seen in the dim and flickering light, As he proceeded to recite His "Maxims of Behaviour."

CANTO II - Hys Fyve Rules

"MY First - but don't suppose," he said, "I'm setting you a riddle - Is - if your Victim be in bed, Don't touch the curtains at his head, But take them in the middle,

"And wave them slowly in and out, While drawing them asunder;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James:

had put before her with candour, credulity, pity. I was afterwards happy to remember that she must have gathered from my face the liveliness of my interest in herself. "I think I see what you mean."

"Oh I express it badly, but I should be delighted if you'd let me come to see you - to explain it better."

She made no response to this, and her thoughtful eyes fell on the big album, on which she presently laid her hands as if to take it away. "I did use to say out West that they might write a little less for autographs - to all the great poets, you know - and study the thoughts and style a little more."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber:

not sit through the first part of the program. They waited together in the anteroom. Theodore, looking very slim and boyish in his frock coat, walked up and down, up and down. Fanny wanted to straighten his tie. She wanted to pick an imaginary thread off his lapel. She wanted to adjust the white flower in his buttonhole (he jerked it out presently, because it interfered with his violin, he said). She wanted to do any one of the foolish, futile things that would have served to relieve her own surcharged feelings. But she had learned control in these years. And she yielded to none of them.

Fanny Herself

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 Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain:

"This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey meeting, in New York, and started home on the ferry-boat, and there was a collision and he got drowned. He is of a class that think all heaven goes wild with joy when a particularly hard lot like him is saved; they think all heaven turns out hosannahing to welcome them; they think there isn't anything talked about in the realms of the blest but their case, for that day. This barkeeper thinks there hasn't been such another stir here in years, as his coming is going to raise. - And I've always noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper - he not only expects all hands to turn out when he arrives, but he expects to be received with a torchlight procession."