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 A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde:

the birds and the animals fled from him, for they remembered his cruelty, and he was alone save for the toad that watched him, and the slow adder that crawled past.

And in the morning he rose up, and plucked some bitter berries from the trees and ate them, and took his way through the great wood, weeping sorely. And of everything that he met he made inquiry if perchance they had seen his mother.

He said to the Mole, 'Thou canst go beneath the earth. Tell me, is my mother there?'

And the Mole answered, 'Thou hast blinded mine eyes. How should I know?'

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

As a faint pallor in the sky;-- Thus cold and colorless and gray, The morn of that autumnal day, As if reluctant to begin, Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn, And all the guests that in it lay.

Full late they slept. They did not hear The challenge of Sir Chanticleer, Who on the empty threshing-floor, Disdainful of the rain outside, Was strutting with a martial stride,

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

Rouget himself, she began to ask herself how, by her presence at Issoudun, she was to save the inheritance. Joseph, poor disinterested artist that he was, knew little enough about the Code, and his mother's last remark absorbed his mind.

"Before our friend Desroches sent us off to protect our rights, he ought to have explained to us the means of doing so," he exclaimed.

"So far as my poor head, which whirls at the thought of Philippe in prison,--without tobacco, perhaps, and about to appear before the Court of Peers!--leaves me any distinct memory," returned Agathe, "I think young Desroches said we were to get evidence of undue influence, in case my brother has made a will in favor of that--that--woman."

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 Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot:

the battle-field, Great Britain abandoned all such processes in toto. Our military organisation preferred to carry out the production of the necessary gas at a convenient manufacturing centre and to transport it, stored in steel cylinders under pressure, to the actual scene of operations. The method proved a great success, and in this way it was found possible to inflate a military balloon in the short space of 20 minutes, whereas, under the conditions of making gas upon the spot, a period of four hours or more was necessary, owing to the fact that the manufacturing process is relatively slow and intricate. The practicability of the British idea and its perfection served to