Today's Stichomancy for Elvis Presley

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke:

When the travelers saw it they were filled with awe and joy. They passed over the little streams and among the orchards quickly and silently, as if they feared to speak lest the city should vanish.

The wall of the city was very low, a child could see over it, for it was made only of precious stones, which are never large. The gate of the city was not like a gate a all, for it was not barred with iron or wood, but only a single pearl, softly gleaming, marked the place where the wall ended and the entrance lay open.

A person stood there whose face was bright and grave, and whose

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades:

some of the fragments being attributed to books from the press of Caxton. This is not the case, although there are pieces of very early black-letter books not now to be found in the Abbey library, including little bits of the famous Queen Elizabeth's Prayer book, with woodcuts, 1568.

A friend sends me the following incident: "A few years since, some rats made nests in the trees surrounding my house; from thence they jumped on to some flat roofing, and so made their way down a chimney into a room where I kept books. A number of these, with parchment backs, they entirely destroyed, as well as some half-dozen books whole bound in parchment."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken:

From room to quiet room, from wall to wall, Breathing deliberately the very air, Pressing our hands and nerves against warm darkness To learn what ghosts are there,-- Suppose for once I set my doors wide open And bid you in. . . .Suppose I try to tell you The secrets of this house, and how I live here; Suppose I tell you who I am, in fact. . . . Deceiving you--as far as I may know it-- Only so much as I deceive myself.

If you are clever you already see me

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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson:

the long walk, wondering, pondering, fearing, scheming, and the dusty jolting railway, and the horrid fusty office with its endless disappointments, they are well gone. It is well enough to fight and scheme and bustle about in the eager crowd here [in London] for a while now and then, but not for a lifetime. What I have now is just perfect. Study for winter, action for summer, lovely country for recreation, a pleasant town for talk . . .'

CHAPTER V. - NOTES OF TELEGRAPH VOYAGES, 1858 TO 1873.

BUT it is now time to see Jenkin at his life's work. I have before me certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, 'at hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important and