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 The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

Even as the winking of the eyes concords,

Moving unto the words their little flames.

Paradiso: Canto XXI

Already on my Lady's face mine eyes Again were fastened, and with these my mind, And from all other purpose was withdrawn;

And she smiled not; but "If I were to smile," She unto me began, "thou wouldst become Like Semele, when she was turned to ashes.

Because my beauty, that along the stairs Of the eternal palace more enkindles,

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther:

buried, but be appropriated and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed, in which He gives the Holy Ghost to bring this treasure home and appropriate it to us. Therefore sanctifying is nothing else than bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves.

Learn, then, to understand this article most clearly. If you are asked: What do you mean by the words: I believe in the Holy Ghost? you can answer: I believe that the Holy Ghost makes me holy, as His name implies. But whereby does He accomplish this, or what are His method and means to this end? Answer: By the Christian Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. For,

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

Revives the milked cow, & tames the fire-breathing steed. But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun: I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place.

Queen of the vales the Lily answered, ask the tender cloud, And it shall tell thee why it glitters in the morning sky. And why it scatters its bright beauty thro the humid air. Descend O little cloud & hover before the eyes of Thel.

The Cloud descended and the Lily bowd her modest head: And went to mind her numerous charge among the verdant grass.

II.

O little Cloud the virgin said, I charge thee to tell me

Poems of William Blake

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 Black Dwarf by Walter Scott:

substance to this:--That she was awaked by the noise which the ruffians made in breaking into the house, and by the resistance made by one or two of the servants, which was soon overpowered; that, dressing herself hastily, she ran downstairs, and having seen, in the scuffle, Westburnflat's vizard drop off, imprudently named him by his name, and besought him for mercy; that the ruffian instantly stopped her mouth, dragged her from the house, and placed her on horseback, behind one of his associates.

"I'll break the accursed neck of him," said Hobbie, "if there werena another Graeme in the land but himsell!"

She proceeded to say, that she was carried southward along with