Today's Stichomancy for James Cameron

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

would have heard the foot-fall of a man upon the staircase which led down from the gallery to the parlor.

The sound of that step would have startled the most heedless being into thought; it was impossible to hear it coolly. A precipitate, headlong step produces fear. When a man springs forward and cries, "Fire!" his feet speak as loudly as his voice. If this be so, then a contrary gait ought not to cause less powerful emotion. The slow approach, the dragging step of the coming man might have irritated an unreflecting spectator; but an observer, or a nervous person, would undoubtedly have felt something akin to terror at the measured tread of feet that seemed devoid of life, and under which the stairs creaked

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

The two great men remained unrecognized during a whole morning at the inn where they had put up, and it was only by chance that Monsieur de Clagny heard of their arrival. Madame de la Baudraye, in despair at this, despatched Gatien Boirouge, who had no vineyards, to beg the two gentlemen to spend a few days at the Chateau d'Anzy. For the last year Dinah had played the chatelaine, and spent the winter only at La Baudraye. Monsieur Gravier, the Public Prosecutor, the Presiding Judge, and Gatien Boirouge combined to give a banquet to the great men, to meet the literary personages of the town.

On hearing that the beautiful Madame de la Baudraye was Jan Diaz, the Parisians went to spend three days at Anzy, fetched in a sort of

The Muse of the Department

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth:

woman, and she was giving them a piece of her mind. They stood stolidly silent while she went at them like a fiend. She had been good-looking once, but was now horribly bloated with drink, and excited by passion. I heard both voices at the same time. What a contrast! The prayer was over now, and a pleading earnest address was being delivered.

"You are wrong," said the voice in the centre "you know you are; all this misery and poverty is a proof of it. You are prodigals. You have got away from your Father's house, and you are rebelling against Him every day Can you wonder that there is so much hunger, and oppression, and wretchedness allowed to come upon you? In the midst of it all your

In Darkest England and The Way Out

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 A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay:

saw a vision - a being in man's shape, who called himself Surtur."

"Well, maybe it was Surtur."

"No, that's impossible," replied Maskull reflectively. "It was Crystalman. And it isn't a question of my suspecting it - I know it."

"How?"

"Because this is Crystalman's world, and Surtur's world is something quite differently

"That's queer, then," said Polecrab.

"Since I've come out of that forest," proceeded Maskull, talking half to himself, "a change has come over me, and I see things differently.