Today's Stichomancy for Alfred Hitchcock
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: repeated the words, "No, they haven't, and I've told Ellen to clear away
tea."
Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley had not come back then. That could only
mean, Mrs Ramsay thought, one thing. She must accept him, or she must
refuse him. This going off after luncheon for a walk, even though
Andrew was with them--what could it mean? except that she had decided,
rightly, Mrs Ramsay thought (and she was very, very fond of Minta), to
accept that good fellow, who might not be brilliant, but then, thought
Mrs Ramsay, realising that James was tugging at her, to make her go on
reading aloud the Fisherman and his Wife, she did in her own heart
infinitely prefer boobies to clever men who wrote dissertations;
 To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: story about Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince Vasili just then,
and Prince Vasili saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered
something and went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince
was disconcerted. The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the
world touched Pierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed
disconcerted, and her look seemed to say: "Well, it is your own
fault."
"The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!" thought Pierre, and
he again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey
Kuzmich, asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it
properly. Helene answered with a smile that she too had missed it.
 War and Peace |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: and locked the door.
I can say now neither what determined nor what guided me, but I went
straight along the lobby, holding my candle high, till I came within sight
of the tall window that presided over the great turn of the staircase.
At this point I precipitately found myself aware of three things.
They were practically simultaneous, yet they had flashes of succession.
My candle, under a bold flourish, went out, and I perceived, by the uncovered
window, that the yielding dusk of earliest morning rendered it unnecessary.
Without it, the next instant, I saw that there was someone on the stair.
I speak of sequences, but I required no lapse of seconds to stiffen
myself for a third encounter with Quint. The apparition had reached
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: of war and the duties of the service, the Colonel of Cuirassiers was
painfully struck by seeing the Colonel of Artillery, whom he knew to
be a prudent man, playing at a game which might bring him to ruin. The
heaps of gold and notes piled on the fateful cards showed the frenzy
of play. A circle of silent men stood round the players at the table.
Now and then a few words were spoken--PASS, PLAY, I STOP, A THOUSAND
LOUIS, TAKEN--but, looking at the five motionless men, it seemed as
though they talked only with their eyes. As the Colonel, alarmed by
Soulanges' pallor, went up to him, the Count was winning. Field-
Marshal the Duc d'Isemberg, Keller, and a famous banker rose from the
table completely cleaned out of considerable sums. Soulanges looked
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