Today's Stichomancy for The Rock

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato:

translation of a Greek author is full of tautology. The tendency of modern languages is to become more correct as well as more perspicuous than ancient. And, therefore, while the English translator is limited in the power of expressing relation or connexion, by the law of his own language increased precision and also increased clearness are required of him. The familiar use of logic, and the progress of science, have in these two respects raised the standard. But modern languages, while they have become more exacting in their demands, are in many ways not so well furnished with powers of expression as the ancient classical ones.

Such are a few of the difficulties which have to be overcome in the work of translation; and we are far from having exhausted the list. (6) The

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

'Was he anywise pale?' I asked.

'Well, it don't seem to me as though he were. But I tell you truly, I didn't take much heed to that.'

'Did he look like a drinking man?'

'Well, no. If you please, sir, he looked more like an eating one.'

'Oh, he was stout, was he?'

'No, sir. I couldn't go so far as that. No, he wasn't not to say STOUT. If anything, lean rather.'

I need not go on with the infuriating interview. It ended as it began, except that Rowley was in tears, and that I had acquired one fact. The man was drawn for me as being of any height you like to

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

calls him 'an author of fear or flight.'

LACHES: Yes, Socrates, and there Homer is right: for he was speaking of chariots, as you were speaking of the Scythian cavalry, who have that way of fighting; but the heavy-armed Greek fights, as I say, remaining in his rank.

SOCRATES: And yet, Laches, you must except the Lacedaemonians at Plataea, who, when they came upon the light shields of the Persians, are said not to have been willing to stand and fight, and to have fled; but when the ranks of the Persians were broken, they turned upon them like cavalry, and won the battle of Plataea.

LACHES: That is true.

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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac:

can meditate at your leisure; it is the very thing to make time pass agreeably in the country."

"That suits me," said the lunatic.

"It only costs a trifle,--eighty francs."

"That won't suit me," said the lunatic.

"Monsieur!" cried Gaudissart, "of course you have got grandchildren? There's the 'Children's Journal'; that only costs seven francs a year."

"Very good; take my wine, and I will subscribe to the children. That suits me very well: a fine idea! intellectual product, child. That's man living upon man, hein?"