Today's Stichomancy for Stanley Kubrick

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

envelope. He was full of refinements and angles, of dreary and distinguished knowledge. Of his unconscious drollery his dress freely partook; it seemed, from the gold ring into which his red necktie was passed to the square toe-caps of his boots, to conform with a high sense of modernness to the fashion before the last. There were moments when his overdone urbanity, all suggestive stammers and interrogative quavers, made him scarcely intelligible; but I felt him to be a gentleman and I liked the honesty of his errand and the expression of his good green eyes.

As a worshipper at the shrine of beauty, however, he needed explaining, especially when I found he had no acquaintance with my

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare:

THRASIMACHUS. After we passed the groves of Caledone, Where murmuring rivers slide with silent streams, We did behold the straggling Scithians' camp, Replete with men, stored with munition; There might we see the valiant minded knights Fetching careers along the spacious plains. Humber and Hubba armed in azure blue, Mounted upon their coursers white as snow, Went to behold the pleasant flowering fields; Hector and Troialus, Priamus lovely sons,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre:

Epeira moves no more, devoting her attention to the incidents of the chase.

When I saw those two threads laid, joining the edges of the rent, I began to hope that I was to witness a mending-process:

'The Spider,' said I to myself, 'will increase the number of those cross-threads from end to end of the breach; and, though the added piece may not match the rest of the work, at least it will fill the gap and the continuous sheet will be of the same use practically as the regular web.'

The reality did not answer to my expectation. The spinstress made no further endeavour all night. She hunted with her riven net, for

The Life of the Spider

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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:

mice in the granary. Go to! I know the stadtholders.

Carpenter. What such a fellow can say with impunity! Had I said such a thing, I should not hold myself safe a moment.

Vansen. Do not make yourselves uneasy! God in heaven does not trouble himself about you, poor worms, much less the Regent.

Jetter. Slanderer!

Vansen. I know some for whom it would be better if, instead of their own high spirits, they had a little tailor's blood in their veins.

Carpenter. What mean you by that?

Vansen. Hum! I mean the count.

Jetter. Egmont! What has he to fear?

Egmont