Today's Stichomancy for Spike Lee

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde:

Give it to me, I say. O God, your very hands are wet with blood! This place is Hell, I cannot tarry here. I pray you let me see your face no more.

DUCHESS

Better for me I had not seen your face. [GUIDO recoils: she seizes his hands as she kneels.] Nay, Guido, listen for a while: Until you came to Padua I lived Wretched indeed, but with no murderous thought, Very submissive to a cruel Lord,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Kulan Tith looked toward Matai Shang as though for corroboration of these charges. The Holy Thern nodded his head. "It is indeed the arch-blasphemer," he said. "Even now he has followed me to the very heart of thy palace, Kulan Tith, for the sole purpose of assassinating me. He--" "He lies!" I cried. "Kulan Tith, listen that you may know the truth. Listen while I tell you why John Carter has followed Matai Shang to the heart of thy palace. Listen to me as well as to them,

The Warlord of Mars

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy:

entered. In the arm-chair sat the broad-faced genial man who had called on Henchard on a memorable morning between one and two years before this time, and whom the latter had seen mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of his arrival. It was Richard Newson. The meeting with the light-hearted father from whom she had been separated half- a-dozen years, as if by death, need hardly be detailed. It was an affecting one, apart from the question of paternity. Henchard's departure was in a moment explained. When the true facts came to be handled the difficulty of restoring her to her old belief in Newson was not so great as might

The Mayor of Casterbridge

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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic:

out upon a level which on misty days was interminable. In bright weather, the remote, low-lying horizon had a defining line of brownish-blue--and this stood for what was left of a primitive forest, containing trees much older than the Norman name it bore. It was a forest which at some time, no doubt, had extended without a break till it merged into that of Epping--leagues away to the south. The modern clearance and tillage, however, which separated it now from Epping had served as a curiously effective barrier--more baffling than the Romans and Angles in their turn had found the original wildwood.

The Market-Place