Today's Stichomancy for Ridley Scott

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey:

"No," replied Stewart.

"Gene! You won't let it come to a fight? Al can be managed. But Jack hates you and he'll have his friends with him."

"There won't be any fight."

"Use your brains now," added Florence; and then she turned to push Madeline gently back into the parlor.

Madeline's glow of warmth changed to a blank dismay. Was she to see her brother act with the violence she now associated with cowboys? The clatter of hoofs stopped before the door. Looking out, Madeline saw a bunch of dusty, wiry horses pawing the gravel and tossing lean heads. Her swift glance ran over the lithe

The Light of Western Stars

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker:

"For instance, sir?" said Adam, venturing a question.

"Well, look at those hills which surround the main one where the site for the Castle was wisely chosen--on the highest ground. Take the others. There is something ostensible in each of them, and in all probability something unseen and unproved, but to be imagined, also."

"For instance?" continued Adam.

"Let us take them SERIATIM. That to the east, where the trees are, lower down--that was once the location of a Roman temple, possibly founded on a pre-existing Druidical one. Its name implies the former, and the grove of ancient oaks suggests the latter."

Lair of the White Worm

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

And you may be very likely right in what you are saying; but I am curious to know whether you imagine that temperate men are ignorant of their own temperance?

I do not think so, he said.

And yet were you not saying, just now, that craftsmen might be temperate in doing another's work, as well as in doing their own?

I was, he replied; but what is your drift?

I have no particular drift, but I wish that you would tell me whether a physician who cures a patient may do good to himself and good to another also?

I think that he may.

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 The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

A bit, for now he calls it Cleopatra. Black hair would never do for Cleopatra.

But you and I are not yet two old women, And you're a man of office. What he does Is more to you than how it is he does it, -- And that's what the Lord God has never told him. They work together, and the Devil helps 'em; They do it of a morning, or if not, They do it of a night; in which event He's peevish of a morning. He seems old; He's not the proper stomach or the sleep --