Today's Stichomancy for Bob Dylan

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather:

of wheat. She never saw him, but, with eyes closed, she could feel that he was yellow like the sunlight, and there was the smell of ripe corn- fields about him. She could feel him approach, bend over her and lift her, and then she could feel herself being carried swiftly off across the fields. After such a reverie she would rise has- tily, angry with herself, and go down to the bath-house that was partitioned off the kitchen shed. There she would stand in a tin tub and prosecute her bath with vigor, finishing it by

O Pioneers!

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe:

building (such as the chapel and the large court within the first gate), and to have built up the whole palace after the manner of those two fronts already done. In these would have been an entire set of rooms of state for the receiving and, if need had been, lodging and entertaining any foreign prince with his retinue; also offices for all the Secretaries of State, Lords of the Treasury, and of Trade, to have repaired to for the despatch of such business as it might be necessary to have done there upon the king's longer residence there than ordinary; as also apartments for all the great officers of the Household; so that had the house had two great squares added, as was designed, there would have been no room to

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

WHEN THE SUN COMES AFTER RAIN

WHEN the sun comes after rain And the bird is in the blue, The girls go down the lane Two by two.

When the sun comes after shadow And the singing of the showers, The girls go up the meadow, Fair as flowers.

When the eve comes dusky red And the moon succeeds the sun,

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 Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer:

To such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase."

The horrible events that followed are punctuated, in my mind, by the striking of a distant clock. It is singular how trivialities thus assert themselves in moments of high tension. I will proceed, then, by these punctuations, to the coming of the horror that it was written we should encounter.

The clock across the common struck two.

Having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our hands with a solution of ammonia Smith and I had followed the programme laid down. It was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house, by simply climbing a fence, and we did not doubt that seeing the light go out in the front,

The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu