Today's Stichomancy for Oliver Stone

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

[65] See Eur. "Ion," 601. Lit. "at every moment I command it."

[66] "To gaze upon all fairest shows (like a spectator in the theatre), and to drink in sounds most delectable." So Walt Whitman.

[67] Aristot. "Rhet." ii. 4. 12; "Eth. N." ix. 4. 9.

[68] See "Mem." III. xi. 17.

With these words the speaker ended, and Callias exclaimed:

By Hera, I envy you your wealth, Antisthenes, firstly, because the state does not lay burthens on you and treat you like a slave; and secondly, people do not fall into a rage with you when you refuse to be their creditor.

The Symposium

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

imagine, threw the whole company into a fit of Laughing--However 'twas the next morning everywhere reported and in a few Days believed by the whole Town, that Miss Letitia Shepherd had actually been brought to Bed of a fine Boy and Girl--and in less than a week there were People who could name the Father, and the Farm House where the Babies were put out to Nurse.

LADY SNEERWELL. Strange indeed!

CRABTREE. Matter of Fact, I assure you--O Lud! Mr. Surface pray is it true that your uncle Sir Oliver is coming home--

SURFACE. Not that I know of indeed Sir.

CRABTREE. He has been in the East Indies a long time--you can

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas:

wine. "Villainous host!" cried he, "he has given us Anjou wine instead of champagne, and fancies we know no better! Yes," continued he, "a charming woman, who entertained kind views toward our friend D'Artagnan, who, on his part, has given her some offense for which she tried to revenge herself a month ago by having him killed by two musket shots, a week ago by trying to poison him, and yesterday by demanding his head of the cardinal."

"What! by demanding my head of the cardinal?" cried D'Artagnan, pale with terror.

"Yes, that is true as the Gospel," said Porthos; "I heard

The Three Musketeers

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 Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell:

wars will grow of themselves out of the changed mental and moral atmosphere.

[56] This was written in March, 1918, almost the darkest moment of the war.

There is a certain class of difficulties which surrounds the sober idealist in all speculations about the not too distant future. These are the cases where the solution believed by most idealists to be universally applicable is for some reason impossible, and is, at the same time, objected to for base or interested motives by all upholders of existing inequalities. The