Today's Stichomancy for Edgar Allan Poe

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson:

called in the faculty of Apemama. They came in a body, all in their Sunday's best and hung with wreaths and shells, the insignia of the devil-worker. Tamaiti I knew already: Terutak' I saw for the first time - a tall, lank, raw-boned, serious North-Sea fisherman turned brown; and there was a third in their company whose name I never heard, and who played to Tamaiti the part of FAMULUS. Tamaiti took me in hand first, and led me, conversing agreeably, to the shores of Fu Bay. The FAMULUS climbed a tree for some green cocoa-nuts. Tamaiti himself disappeared a while in the bush and returned with coco tinder, dry leaves, and a spray of waxberry. I was placed on the stone, with my back to the tree and

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale:

Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind, And kindled night along the lyric shore? O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss, Do you go sorrowing because of this In fields where poets sing forevermore? Or are you glad and is it best to be A silent music men have never heard, A dream in all our souls that we may say: "Her voice had all the rapture of the sea, And all the clear cool quiver of a bird Deep in a forest at the break of day"?

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer:

beyond the test site had to be evacuated. Five radiological safety monitors were assigned to this detachment. Ninety-four men of the evacuation detachment belonged to Provisional Detachment Number 1, Company "B," of the 9812th Technical Service Unit, Army Corps of Engineers, from LASL. The identity of the remaining evacuation personnel has not been documented (3; 4; 8; 10; 15).

With the exception of the shelter occupants (99 personnel) and evacuation detachment (between 144 and 160 men), the number of personnel at the test site at the time of detonation has not been documented. Film badge records show that approximately 355 people were at the test site at some time during 16 July. The shelter

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 Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac:

He found an empty church. The townsfolk, devout though they were, had all gone down to the quay to watch the embarkation of the troops. He felt glad to be the only man there. He tramped noisily up the nave, clanking his spurs till the vaulted roof rang with the sound; he coughed, he talked aloud to himself to let the nuns know, and more particularly to let the organist know that if the troops were gone, one Frenchman was left behind. Was this singular warning heard and understood? He thought so. It seemed to him that in the Magnificat the organ made response which was borne to him on the vibrating air. The nun's spirit found wings in music and fled towards him, throbbing with the