Today's Stichomancy for Martin Scorsese

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Tweed had got a hold o' him and carried him off like a wind, for it was uncoly swalled, and raced wi' him, bobbing under brae-sides, and was long playing with the creature in the drumlie lynns under the castle, and at the hinder end of all cuist him up on the starling of Crossmichael brig. Sae there they were a'thegither at last (for Dickieson had been brought in on a cart long syne), and folk could see what mainner o'man my brither had been that had held his head again sax and saved the siller, and him drunk!" Thus died of honourable injuries and in the savour of fame Gilbert Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap; but his sons had scarce less glory out of the business. Their savage haste, the skill with which Dand had found and followed the trail, the barbarity to

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair:

Bible, "Call upon the name of the Lord," and explains that "Call means call." The word appears to have a special meaning to these pentecostal persons--it means working yourself into a frenzy of agitation; as the editor puts it, "you must lay hold of the horns of the altar." He goes on to exhort--the bold face being his:

Pray as if your very life depended upon it! The first few minutes seemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the next few, relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling. In a very little while you will be dead to the room, dead to the chair, dead to everyone around you, dead to all and tremendously alive to your desperate need and emptyness; this conviction will

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft:

with mankind in general if we could. The newspapers have printed the bulletins we sent from the moving plane, telling of our nonstop course, our two battles with treacherous upper-air gales, our glimpse of the broken surface where Lake had sunk his mid-journey shaft three days before, and our sight of a group of those strange fluffy snow cylinders noted by Amundsen and Byrd as rolling in the wind across the endless leagues of frozen plateau. There came a point, though, when our sensations could not be conveyed in any words the press would understand, and a latter point when we had to adopt an actual rule of strict censorship. The sailor

At the Mountains of Madness

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 Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

knows that they were a very happy couple, and even if there was a little talk between them on that day, why it was pure accident and had nothing to do with the mistress' excitement."

"Then there was a quarrel between them?"

"Are people talking about it?"

"I've heard some things said. They even say that this quarrel was the reason for - her death."

"It's stupid nonsense!" exclaimed the servant. The old peddler seemed to like the young man's honest indignation.

While they were talking, they had passed through a long corridor and the young man laid his hand on one of the doors as the peddler