Today's Stichomancy for Albert Einstein
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: with hot haste toward Sparta to announce the arrival of the
Persians. Now, while this original source of mental discomfort,
which afflicts the uncivilized man, had ceased materially to
affect the Athenians, they on the other hand lived at a time when
the vague sense of sin and self-reproof which was characteristic
of the early ages of Christianity, had not yet invaded society.
The vast complication of life brought about by the extension of
the Roman Empire led to a great development of human sympathies,
unknown in earlier times, and called forth unquiet yearnings,
desire for amelioration, a sense of short-coming, and a morbid
self-consciousness. It is accordingly under Roman sway that we
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: tell us in this chapter. But he proceeds to give a biography of
his descendant, Sun Pin, born about a hundred years after his
famous ancestor's death, and also the outstanding military genius
of his time. The historian speaks of him too as Sun Tzu, and in
his preface we read: "Sun Tzu had his feet cut off and yet
continued to discuss the art of war." [3] It seems likely, then,
that "Pin" was a nickname bestowed on him after his mutilation,
unless the story was invented in order to account for the name.
The crowning incident of his career, the crushing defeat of his
treacherous rival P`ang Chuan, will be found briefly related in
Chapter V. ss. 19, note.
The Art of War |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: leave this neighbourhood.' `How dost thou do that? Come, tell
me now!' `There is not one of them that dares to move when they
see me coming. For when I can get hold of one I give its two
horns such a wrench with my hard, strong hands that the others
tremble with fear, and gather at once round about me as if to ask
for mercy. No one could venture here but me, for if he should go
among them he would be straightway done to death. In this way I
am master of my beasts. And now thou must tell me in turn what
kind of a man thou art, and what thou seekest here.' `I am, as
thou seest, a knight seeking for what I cannot find; long have I
sought without success.' `And what is this thou fain wouldst
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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 Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: wonderful secret of womanhood, the exquisite gift that Nature so
seldom bestows. And the Vicomtesse, on her side, listening to the ring
of sincerity in Gaston's voice, while he told of his youthful
troubles, began to understand all that grown children of five-and-
twenty suffer from diffidence, when hard work has kept them alike from
corrupting influences and intercourse with men and women of the world
whose sophistical reasoning and experience destroys the fair qualities
of youth. Here was the ideal of a woman's dreams, a man unspoiled as
yet by the egoism of family or success, or by that narrow selfishness
which blights the first impulses of honor, devotion, self-sacrifice,
and high demands of self; all the flowers so soon wither that enrich
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