Today's Stichomancy for Fritz Lang

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot:

Stares from the protozoic slime At a perspective of Canaletto. The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once. The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot. Money in furs. The boatman smiles,

Princess Volupine extends A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights, She entertains Sir Ferdinand

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

know what course we had been holding, and there was no way of finding out, as we could no longer trust the compass, not knowing what Benson had done to it. The long and the short of it was that we cruised about aimlessly until the sun came out again. I'll never forget that day or its surprises. We reckoned, or rather guessed, that we were somewhere off the coast of Peru. The wind, which had been blowing fitfully from the east, suddenly veered around into the south, and presently we felt a sudden chill.

"Peru!" snorted Olson. "When were yez after smellin' iceber-rgs off Peru?"

Icebergs! "Icebergs, nothin'!" exclaimed one of the Englishmen.

The Land that Time Forgot

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

"Yes," she said.

"Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more with his Excellency."

"It is true," she said, "that I never fully understood you till to-night. There is nothing commonplace about YOU."

"We will be two old friends," said des Lupeaulx, "and suppress all tender nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they did under the Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in those days!"

"You are really strong; you deserve my admiration," she said, smiling, and holding out her hand to him, "one does more for one's friend, you

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 A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain:

permission. The bands knew the child's favorite military airs. By this hint you know what is coming, but Cathy didn't. She was asked to sound the "reveille," which she did.

[REVEILLE]

With the last note the bands burst out with a crash: and woke the mountains with the "Star-Spangled Banner" in a way to make a body's heart swell and thump and his hair rise! It was enough to break a person all up, to see Cathy's radiant face shining out through her gladness and tears. By request she blew the "assembly," now. . . .

[THE ASSEMBLY]

. . . Then the bands thundered in, with "Rally round the flag,