Today's Stichomancy for Steve McQueen

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard:

well to die upon a full stomach, having faced death so long upon an empty one, and while we devoured the meat the Spaniards stood on one side scanning us, not without pity. Presently, Tecuichpo was brought before Cortes, and with her Otomie and some six other ladies. He greeted her graciously, and they also were given to eat. Now, one of the Spaniards who had been watching me whispered something into the ear of Cortes, and I saw his face darken.

'Say,' he said to me in Castilian, 'are you that renegade, that traitor who has aided these Aztecs against us?'

'I am no renegade and no traitor, general,' I answered boldly, for the food and wine had put new life into me. 'I am an Englishman,

Montezuma's Daughter

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson:

XXXVII. THE HOUSE OF TEMBINOKA - Let us, who part like brothers, part like bards XXXVIII. THE WOODMAN - In all the grove, not stream nor bird XXXIX. TROPIC RAIN - As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well XL. AN END OF TRAVEL - Let now your soul in this substantial world XLI. We uncommiserate pass into the night XLII. Sing me a song of a lad that is gone XLIII. TO S. R. CROCKETT - Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and rain are flying XLIV. EVENSONG - The embers of the day are red

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

immediately rally to them, as Pisa after the hundred years she had been held in bondage by the Florentines.

But when cities or countries are accustomed to live under a prince, and his family is exterminated, they, being on the one hand accustomed to obey and on the other hand not having the old prince, cannot agree in making one from amongst themselves, and they do not know how to govern themselves. For this reason they are very slow to take up arms, and a prince can gain them to himself and secure them much more easily. But in republics there is more vitality, greater hatred, and more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to allow the memory of their former liberty to rest; so that the safest way is to

The Prince

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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson:

Blanch'd with his mill, they found; and saying to him `Come with us Father Philip' he denied; But when the children pluck'd at him to go, He laugh'd, and yielding readily to their wish, For was not Annie with them? and they went.

But after scaling half the weary down, Just where the prone edge of the wood began To feather toward the hollow, all her force Fail'd her; and sighing `let me rest' she said. So Philip rested with her well-content; While all the younger ones with jubilant cries