Today's Stichomancy for Alfred Hitchcock

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley:

than his neighbours. Indeed his neighbours cannot see into a milestone at all, but only see the outside of it, and know things only by rote, like parrots, without understanding what they mean and how they are made.

So now remember that chalk is carbonate of lime, and that it is made up of three things, calcium, oxygen, and carbon; and that therefore its mark is CaCO(3), in Analysis's language, which I hope you will be able to read some day.

But how is it that Analysis and Synthesis cannot take all this chalk to pieces, and put it together again?

Look here; what is that in the chalk?

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

gaunt, lean wolves--huge creatures twice the size of our Canadian timber-wolves. Farther up we were as- sailed by enormous white bears--hungry, devilish fellows, who came roaring across the rough glacier tops at the first glimpse of us, or stalked us stealthily by scent when they had not yet seen us.

It is one of the peculiarities of life within Pellucidar that man is more often the hunted than the hunter. Myriad are the huge-bellied carnivora of this primitive world. Never, from birth to death, are those great bellies sufficiently filled, so always are their mighty owners

Pellucidar

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

From the high dome of this mighty apartment a huge circular column extended to the floor, and as I watched I saw that it slowly revolved. I had reached the base of the Temple of the Sun! Somewhere above me lay Dejah Thoris, and with her were Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, and Thuvia of Ptarth. But how to reach them, now that I had found the only vulnerable spot in their mighty prison, was still a baffling riddle.

The Warlord of Mars

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 Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

the thought. He wished that he had had a sister, and that she had been like this girl. What a bully chum she would have been!

They had entered the mountains now, and were progressing more slowly, for the trail was steeper and very rocky.

For a few minutes they had been silent. The girl was wondering if they would reach her father's DOUAR before the pursuit had overtaken them. Tarzan was wishing that they might walk on thus forever. If the girl were only a man they might. He longed for a friend who loved the same wild life that he loved. He had learned to crave companionship, but it was his misfortune that most of the men he knew

The Return of Tarzan