Today's Stichomancy for Leonard Cohen

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac:

articles ready for Gaillard, who will promise to take them; Lucien will never get a line into the paper. We will cut off his supplies. There is only Martainville's paper left him in which to defend himself and Coralie; what can a single paper do against so many?"

"I will let you know the weak points of the Ministry; but get Lucien to write that article and hand over the manuscript," said des Lupeaulx, who refrained carefully from informing Finot that Lucien's promised patent was nothing but a joke.

When des Lupeaulx had gone, Finot went to Lucien, and taking the good- natured tone which deceives so many victims, he explained that he could not possibly afford to lose his contributor, and at the same

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

I saw there will live forever in my memory. Terrible as they were, they could not have commenced to approximate the horrible conditions which must have obtained before Tars Tarkas, the great green warrior, Xodar, the black dator, and I brought the light of truth to the outer world and stopped the mad rush of millions upon the voluntary pilgrimage to what they believed would end in a beautiful valley of peace and happiness and love. Even now the low islands which dotted the broad stream were choked with the skeletons and half devoured carcasses of those who,

The Warlord of Mars

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac:

distorted. His mother was rigid as an oar.

"'If you shout, if you stir, if you do not sit still on that stool,' said Pierre, aiming the gun at him, 'I will shoot you like a dog.'

"Jacques was mute as a fish. The mother said nothing.

"'Here,' said Pierre, 'is a piece of paper which wrapped a Spanish gold piece. That piece of gold was in your mother's bed; she alone knew where it was. I found that paper in the water when I landed here to-day. You gave a piece of Spanish gold this night to Mere Fleurant, and your mother's piece is no longer in her bed. Explain all this.'

"Jacques said he had not taken his mother's money, and that the gold piece was one he had brought from Nantes.

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 Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare:

Dark night seems darker by the lightning flash; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds; And every glory that inclines to sin, The shame is treble by the opposite. So leave I with my blessing in thy bosom, Which then convert to a most heavy curse, When thou convertest from honor's golden name To the black faction of bed blotting shame.

COUNTESS. I'll follow thee; and when my mind turns so, My body sink my soul in endless woe!