Today's Stichomancy for Wes Craven

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tanach:

Proverbs 24: 21 My son, fear thou the LORD and the king, and meddle not with them that are given to change;

Proverbs 24: 22 For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin from them both?

Proverbs 24: 23 These also are sayings of the wise. To have respect of persons in judgment is not good.

Proverbs 24: 24 He that saith unto the wicked: 'Thou art righteous', peoples shall curse him, nations shall execrate him;

Proverbs 24: 25 But to them that decide justly shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them.

Proverbs 24: 26 He kisseth the lips that giveth a right answer.

Proverbs 24: 27 Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thy house.

Proverbs 24: 28 Be not a witness against thy neighbour without cause; and deceive not with thy lips.

Proverbs 24: 29 Say not: 'I will do so to him as he hath done to me; I will render to the man according to his work.'

Proverbs 24: 30 I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;

Proverbs 24: 31 And, lo, it was all grown over with thistles, the face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.

The Tanach

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes:

of Arthur's knights, Gawain. Yvain, Erec, Lancelot, and Perceval, has been forgotten; whereas posterity has been kinder to his debtors, Wolfram yon Eschenbach, Malory, Lord Tennyson, and Richard Wagner. The present volume has grown out of the desire to place these romances of adventure before the reader of English in a prose version based directly upon the oldest form in which they exist.

Such extravagant claims for Chretien's art have been made in some quarters that one feels disinclined to give them even an echo here. The modem reader may form his own estimate of the poet's art, and that estimate will probably not be high. Monotony, lack

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli:

Fermo, etc., 1502; Discorso sopra la provisione del danaro, 1502; Decennale primo (poem in terza rima), 1506; Ritratti delle cose dell' Alemagna, 1508-12; Decennale secondo, 1509; Ritratti delle cose di Francia, 1510; Discorsi sopra la prima deca di T. Livio, 3 vols., 1512-17; Il Principe, 1513; Andria, comedy translated from Terence, 1513 (?); Mandragola, prose comedy in five acts, with prologue in verse, 1513; Della lingua (dialogue), 1514; Clizia, comedy in prose, 1515 (?); Belfagor arcidiavolo (novel), 1515; Asino d'oro (poem in terza rima), 1517; Dell' arte della guerra, 1519-20; Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze, 1520; Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca, 1520; Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca, 1520; Istorie

The Prince

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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson:

marriage by the way, and left a curious friendship. Only once - at the very moment when she is showing herself so little a woman and so much a high-spirited man - only once is he very deeply stirred towards her; and that finds expression in the strange and horrible transport of admiration, doubly strange and horrible on Salvini's lips - 'Bring forth men- children only!'

The murder scene, as was to be expected, pleased the audience best. Macbeth's voice, in the talk with his wife, was a thing not to be forgotten; and when he spoke of his hangman's hands he seemed to have blood in his utterance. Never for a