Today's Stichomancy for Robert Redford

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

The two girls watched the column moving up the broad avenue from The Gate of Enemies toward the palace of O-Tar. A gorgeous, barbaric procession of painted warriors in jewel-studded harness and waving feathers; vicious, squealing thoats caparisoned in rich trappings; far above their heads the long lances of their riders bore fluttering pennons; foot-soldiers swinging easily along the stone pavement, their sandals of zitidar hide giving forth no sound; and at the rear of each utan a train of painted chariots, drawn by mammoth zitidars, carrying the equipment of the company to which they were attached. Utan after utan entered through the great gate, and even when the head of the column

The Chessmen of Mars

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Songs no more shall I sing; not with me, ye goats, as your shepherd, Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or blooming laburnum.

TITYRUS. Nevertheless, this night together with me canst thou rest thee Here on the verdant leaves; for us there are mellowing apples, Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in abundance; And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the distance, And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the shadows.

OVID IN EXILE

AT TOMIS, IN BESSARABIA, NEAR THE MOUTHS OF THE DANUBE.

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

which you hold it remains stiff, the rest hangs loose); and while perpetually hunting for the portion which escapes him, he lets the mouthpiece go from his bars.[6] For this reason the rings are hung in the middle from the two axles,[7] so that while feeling for them with his tongue and teeth he may neglect to take the bit up against his jaws.

[5] Or, "poker," as we might say; lit. "spit."

[6] Schneid. cf. Eur. "Hippol." 1223.

[7] See Morgan, note ad loc. Berenger (i. 261) notes: "We have a small chain in the upset or hollow part of our bits, called a 'Player,' with which the horse playing with his tongue, and rolling it

On Horsemanship

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:

As heiress and not heir regretfully? But `he that marries her marries her name' This fiat somewhat soothed himself and wife, His wife a faded beauty of the Baths, Insipid as the Queen upon a card; Her all of thought and bearing hardly more Than his own shadow in a sickly sun.

A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn, Little about it stirring save a brook! A sleepy land where under the same wheel The same old rut would deepen year by year;