Today's Stichomancy for Matt Damon

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

Ainsi dansez pour moi. Dansez pour moi, Salome, je vous supplie. Si vous dansez pour moi vous pourrez me demander tout ce que vous voudrez et je vous le donnerai. Oui, dansez pour moi, Salome, et je vous donnerai tout ce que vous me demanderez, fut-ce la moitie de mon royaume.

SALOME [se levant] Vous me donnerez tout ce que je demanderai, tetrarque?

HERODIAS. Ne dansez pas, ma fille.

HERODE. Tout, fut-ce la moitie de mon royaume.

SALOME. Vous le jurez, tetrarque?

HERODE. Je le jure, Salome.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells:

Montgomery shot the thing. After that I stuck to the ideal of humanity-- except for little things."

He became silent. I sat in silence watching his face.

"So for twenty years altogether--counting nine years in England-- I have been going on; and there is still something in everything I do that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort. Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it; but always I fall short of the things I dream. The human shape I can get now, almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is trouble with the hands and the claws,--painful things, that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting

The Island of Doctor Moreau

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon:

making sandals. And thus you will have at once defensive armour for the shins and stockings for the feet.

The above, with the blessing of heaven, will serve for armour of defence. To come to weapons of offence, we recommend the sabre rather than the straight sword,[9] since from the vantage-ground of the horse's position the curved blade will descend with greater force than the ordinary weapon.

[9] The {makhaira} (or {kopis}), Persian fashion, rather than the {xephos}. "Cyrop." I. ii. 13.

Again, in place of the long reed spear, which is apt to be weak and awkward to carry, we would substitute two darts of cornel-wood;[10]

On Horsemanship

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 Cratylus by Plato:

only be ascertained by an appeal to etymology. The truth of names is to be found in the analysis of their elements. But why does he admit etymologies which are absurd, based on Heracleitean fancies, fourfold interpretations of words, impossible unions and separations of syllables and letters?

1. The answer to this difficulty has been already anticipated in part: Socrates is not a dogmatic teacher, and therefore he puts on this wild and fanciful disguise, in order that the truth may be permitted to appear: 2. as Benfey remarks, an erroneous example may illustrate a principle of language as well as a true one: 3. many of these etymologies, as, for example, that of dikaion, are indicated, by the manner in which Socrates speaks of them, to have been current in his own age: 4. the philosophy of