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 The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson:

into the error of the French naturalists, and consider any fact as welcome to admission if it be the ground of brilliant handiwork; or, again, into the error of the modern landscape- painter, who is apt to think that difficulty overcome and science well displayed can take the place of what is, after all, the one excuse and breath of art - charm. A little further, and he will regard charm in the light of an unworthy sacrifice to prettiness, and the omission of a tedious passage as an infidelity to art.

We have now the matter of this difference before us. The idealist, his eye singly fixed upon the greater outlines,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde:

Endymion would have passed across the mead Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid.

A moment more, the waking dove had cooed, The silver daughter of the silver sea With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed Her wanton from the chase, and Dryope Had thrust aside the branches of her oak To see the lusty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting yoke.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Easily before had Tarzan locked his legs beneath the belly of a lion while he clung to its long mane and stabbed it until his point reached its heart. So easy it had seemed before that he experienced a sharp feeling of resentment that he was unable to do so now, for the quick movements of the lion prevented him, and presently, to his dismay, as the lion leaped and threw him about, the ape-man realized that he was swinging in- evitably beneath those frightful talons.

With a final effort he threw himself from Numa's back and sought, by his quickness, to elude the frenzied beast for the fraction of an instant that would permit him to regain his

Tarzan the Untamed

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 Othello by William Shakespeare:

Iago. Doe, with like timerous accent, and dire yell, As when (by Night and Negligence) the Fire Is spied in populus Citties

Rodo. What hoa: Brabantio, Signior Brabantio, hoa

Iago. Awake: what hoa, Brabantio: Theeues, Theeues. Looke to your house, your daughter, and your Bags, Theeues, Theeues

Bra. Aboue. What is the reason of this terrible Summons? What is the matter there? Rodo. Signior is all your Familie within? Iago. Are your Doores lock'd?

Othello