Today's Stichomancy for Sergio Leone

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells:

A glare of light dazzled his eyes, a vast seething expanse of struggling men confused his mind. A shout, a burst of cheering, came across the ways. He looked up to see the source of the light. A man hung far overhead from the upper part of a cable, holding by a rope the blinding star that had driven the darkness back. He wore a red uniform.

Graham's eyes fell to the ways again. A wedge of red a little way along the vista caught his eye. He saw it was a dense mass of red-clad men jammed the higher further way, their backs against the pitiless

When the Sleeper Wakes

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Tanach:

Daniel 9: 9 To the Lord our God belong compassions and forgivenesses; for we have rebelled against Him;

Daniel 9: 10 neither have we hearkened to the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.

Daniel 9: 11 Yea, all Israel have transgressed Thy law, and have turned aside, so as not to hearken to Thy voice; and so there hath been poured out upon us the curse and the oath that is written in the Law of Moses the servant of God; for we have sinned against Him.

Daniel 9: 12 And He hath confirmed His word, which He spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil; so that under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem.

Daniel 9: 13 As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us; yet have we not entreated the favour of the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in Thy truth.

Daniel 9: 14 And so the LORD hath watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for the LORD our God is righteous in all His works which He hath done, and we have not hearkened to His voice.

Daniel 9: 15 And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought Thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten Thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.

The Tanach

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard:

yards and then there were forty yards to run back, and though the girls laboured gloriously, even staggering along alone, each with a block in her arms, it was slow work, dreadfully slow.

The light was growing now, and presently, in the silence, we heard a commotion at the far-bottom of the stair, and the faint clinking of armed men. As yet the wall was only two feet high, and we had been eight minutes at the building of it. So they had come. Alphonse had heard aright.

The clanking sound came nearer, and in the ghostly grey of the dawning we could make out long files of men, some fifty or so in all, slowly creeping up the stair. They were now at the half-way

Allan Quatermain

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 Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale:

Down the hill I went, and then I forgot the ways of men, For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool Wakened ecstasy in me On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup You have made me drunk and wild Ever since I was a child, But when have I been sure as now That no bitterness can bend And no sorrow wholly bow