Today's Stichomancy for Peter Gabriel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac:

Barbet A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Seamy Side of History The Middle Classes

Bixiou, Jean-Jacques The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment The Government Clerks Modeste Mignon Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Firm of Nucingen

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

"But you know that we will have to close the apartment officially," said Horn, his voice sharpening in his surprise and displeasure.

"I do not need to be in these rooms any longer."

"Don't let them disturb you, my dear Muller; we will allow your keenness all possible leeway here." The Head of Police spoke with calm politeness, but Muller started and shivered. The emphasis on the "here" showed him that even the head of the department had been incensed at his suggestion that the beautiful Mrs. Kniepp had died of her own free will. It had been his assertion of this which, coming to the ears of the bereaved husband, had enraged and embittered him, and had turned the power of his influence with the

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

man; but what are ten short years in the long struggle with Nature? We do not know the type it cost Pygmalion to make the only statue that ever walked--"

He fell into a reverie and remained, with fixed eyes, oblivious of all about him, playing mechanically with his knife.

"See, he is talking to his own soul," said Porbus in a low voice.

The words acted like a spell on Nicolas Poussin, filling him with the inexplicable curiosity of a true artist. The strange old man, with his white eyes fixed in stupor, became to the wondering youth something more than a man; he seemed a fantastic spirit inhabiting an unknown sphere, and waking by its touch confused ideas within the soul. We can

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 Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

Then a little boy--but he seemed a very large boy to Bessie Bell with his long-striped-stocking-legs--said to Bessie Bell: ``No, Bessie Bell, they are not Sisters like Sister Helen Vincula and the Sisters that you know, but they are just what they say they are-- just own dear sisters.''

Then came to Bessie Bell that knowledge that we are often times slow in getting: she knew all of a sudden--that she did not know everything. She did not know all, even about Sisters.

Because, in all that she knew or remembered or wondered about, there was nothing at all about that strange thing that all the little children, but herself, knew so well about--''Own-dear-sisters.''