Today's Stichomancy for Louis Armstrong

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells:

now--we need not worry about Belinda."

Section 7

At the breakfast table it was Belinda who was the most nervous of the three, the most moved, the most disposed to throw a sacramental air over their last meal together. Her companions had passed beyond the idea of separation; it was as if they now cherished a secret satisfaction at the high dignity of their parting. Belinda in some way perceived they had become different. They were no longer tremulous lovers; they seemed sure of one another and with a new pride in their bearing. It would have pleased Belinda better, seeing how

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius:

Much in the manner as oft a leaden ball Grows hot upon its aery course, the while It loseth many bodies of stark cold And taketh into itself along the air New particles of fire. It happens, too, That force of blow itself arouses fire, When force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth Without all fire, hath strook somewhere amain- No marvel, because, when with terrific stroke 'Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff Can stream together from out the very wind

Of The Nature of Things

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

Nature gives to all her creatures--pain.

Old maids who have never yielded in their habits of life or in their characters to other lives and other characters, as the fate of woman exacts, have, as a general thing, a mania for making others give way to them. In Mademoiselle Gamard this sentiment had degenerated into despotism, but a despotism that could only exercise itself on little things. For instance (among a hundred other examples), the basket of counters placed on the card-table for the Abbe Birotteau was to stand exactly where she placed it; and the abbe annoyed her terribly by moving it, which he did nearly every evening. How is this sensitiveness stupidly spent on nothings to be accounted for? what is

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 Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton:

on the future. He knew that she must resent his part in the long separation, no doubt his lack of im- pulsiveness in not proposing elopement. There was a priest in his company who, although he ate below the salt and found his associates among the sailors, could have performed the ceremony of marriage when the Juno, under full sail in the night, was scudding for the Russian north. It is not to be denied that this romantic alternative appealed to Rezanov, and had it not been for the starving wretches so eagerly awaiting his coming he might

Rezanov