Today's Stichomancy for Nick Cave

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson:

sort of gospel, and still gave the cue to zealous imitators. But if the book be written in rose-water, the imitation was still farther expurgated; honesty was the rule; the innkeepers gave, as I have said, almost unlimited credit; they suffered the seediest painter to depart, to take all his belongings, and to leave his bill unpaid; and if they sometimes lost, it was by English and Americans alone. At the same time, the great influx of Anglo- Saxons had begun to affect the life of the studious. There had been disputes; and, in one instance at least, the English and the Americans had made common cause to prevent a cruel pleasantry. It would be well if nations and races could communicate their

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken:

And brilliant figures suddenly fill the darkness, Down the white shaft of light they run through darkness, And in our hearts a dazzling dream unwinds . . .

Take my hand, then, walk with me By the slow soundless crashings of a sea Down miles on miles of glistening mirrorlike sand,-- Take my hand And walk with me once more by crumbling walls; Up mouldering stairs where grey-stemmed ivy clings, To hear forgotten bells, as evening falls, Rippling above us invisibly their slowly widening rings. . . .

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

3. Is the meschanka Katerina Michaelovna Maslova, 27 years of age, guilty of the crimes described in the first question?

4. If the prisoner Euphemia Botchkova is not guilty according to the first question, is she not guilty of having, on the 17th January, in the town of N----, while in service at the hotel Mauritania, stolen from a locked portmanteau, belonging to the merchant Smelkoff, a lodger in that hotel, and which was in the room occupied by him, 2,500 roubles, for which object she unlocked the portmanteau with a key she brought and fitted to the lock?

The foreman read the first question.

Resurrection

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 Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

open window of the washroom at the rear of the restaurant, and search as he would he had been unable to pick it up again.

No one in Kansas City had seen two men that night answering the descriptions Flannagan had been able to give-- at least no one whom Flannagan could unearth.

Finally he had been forced to take the Kansas City chief into his confidence, and already a dozen men were scouring such sections of Kansas City in which it seemed most likely an escaped murderer would choose to hide.

Flannagan had been out himself for a while; but now he

The Mucker