Today's Stichomancy for Igor Stravinsky

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac:

The Gondreville Mystery The Seamy Side of History The Member for Arcis

Dudley, Lady Arabella The Lily of the Valley The Ball at Sceaux The Magic Skin A Daughter of Eve Letters of Two Brides

Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d') Jealousies of a Country Town

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley:

Yes. I do that: and I love, as the Nymphs loved of old, men who have eyes to see my beauty, and ears to discern my song, and to fit their own song to it, and tell how

"'I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling,

"'And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare:

YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord, You said that idle weeds are fast in growth. The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far. GLOUCESTER. He hath, my lord. YORK. And therefore is he idle? GLOUCESTER. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so. YORK. Then he is more beholding to you than I. GLOUCESTER. He may command me as my sovereign; But you have power in me as in a kinsman. YORK. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger. GLOUCESTER. My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart!

Richard III

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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells:

long and anxiously how the preparation might be turned to commercial account. "It's a good thing," said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world something, and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to pay. The dignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must have the monopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL the fun in life should go to the dealers in ham."

My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less