Today's Stichomancy for Peter Gabriel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King James Bible:

works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties.

PSA 141:5 Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.

PSA 141:6 When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet.

PSA 141:7 Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.

PSA 141:8 But mine eyes are unto thee, O GOD the Lord: in thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute.

PSA 141:9 Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the

King James Bible

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

paved with them. Herds of wives squatted by companies on the gravel, softly chatting. Tembinok' would doff his jacket, and sit bare and silent, perhaps meditating songs; the favourite usually by him, silent also. Meanwhile in the midst of the court, the palace lanterns were being lit and marshalled in rank upon the ground - six or eight square yards of them; a sight that gave one strange ideas of the number of 'my pamily': such a sight as may be seen about dusk in a corner of some great terminus at home. Presently these fared off into all corners of the precinct, lighting the last labours of the day, lighting one after another to their rest that prodigious company of women. A few lingered in the middle of the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso:

And through the secret dales they silent pass, Where danger least, least fear, least peril was.

XCVII But when these fair adventurers entered were Deep in a vale, Erminia stayed her haste, To be recalled she had no cause to fear, This foremost hazard had she trimly past; But dangers new, tofore unseen, appear, New perils she descried, new doubts she cast. The way that her desire to quiet brought, More difficult now seemed than erst she thought.

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 Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar:

infuriated at their loss, for those costly machines belong to the labourers and not to the ship-owners, turned upon the mob and began to throw brickbats, pieces of iron, chunks of wood, anything that came to hand. It was pandemonium turned loose over a turgid stream, with a malarial sun to heat the passions to fever point.

Mr. Baptiste had taken refuge behind a bread-stall on the outside of the market. He had taken off his cap, and was weakly cheering the Negroes on.

"Bravo!" cheered Mr. Baptiste.

"Will yez look at that damned fruit-eatin' Frinchman!" howled

The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories