Today's Stichomancy for Steven Spielberg

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

easy to exaggerate its import, yet, in the Jenkin family also, the tragedy of the generations was proceeding, and the child was growing out of his father's knowledge. His artistic aptitude was of a different order. Already he had his quick sight of many sides of life; he already overflowed with distinctions and generalisations, contrasting the dramatic art and national character of England, Germany, Italy, and France. If he were dull, he would write stories and poems. 'I have written,' he says at thirteen, 'a very long story in heroic measure, 300 lines, and another Scotch story and innumerable bits of poetry'; and at the same age he had not only a keen feeling for scenery, but could do

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac:

but they are trembling with rage. The father congratulates himself on his son's approaching marriage, and the son is in despair at this fresh obstacle, though it only increases his love, to which everything is opposed. Genovese and Carthagenova are singing admirably. As you see, the tenor is making his peace with the house. How well he brings out the beauty of the music! The phrase given out by the son on the tonic, and repeated by the father on the dominant, is all in character with the simple, serious scheme which prevails throughout the score; the sobriety of it makes the endless variety of the music all the more wonderful. All Egypt is there.

"I do not believe that there is in modern music a composition more

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

or sanguinary measures he so disposed them by his healing presence that civil concord and material prosperity were permanently maintained. Therefore it was that the Hellenes in Asia deplored his departure,[17] as though they had lost, not simply a ruler, but a father or bosom friend, and in the end they showed that their friendship was of no fictitious character. At any rate, they voluntarily helped him to succour Lacedaemon, though it involved, as they knew, the need of doing battle with combatants of equal prowess with themselves. So the tale of his achievements in Asia has an end.

[17] See Plut. "Ages." xv.

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 Ion by Plato:

the help of which art, Ion, do you know whether horses are well managed, by your skill as a horseman or as a performer on the lyre--what would you answer?

ION: I should reply, by my skill as a horseman.

SOCRATES: And if you judged of performers on the lyre, you would admit that you judged of them as a performer on the lyre, and not as a horseman?

ION: Yes.

SOCRATES: And in judging of the general's art, do you judge of it as a general or a rhapsode?

ION: To me there appears to be no difference between them.

SOCRATES: What do you mean? Do you mean to say that the art of the