Today's Stichomancy for Galileo Galilei
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: the shorn lamb, and bid the drooping buds of hope revive, benevolence
changes into passion: and should he then discover that he is beloved,
honour binds him fast, though foreseeing that he may afterwards be
obliged to pay severe damages to the man, who never appeared to
value his wife's society, till he found that there was a chance of
his being indemnified for the loss of it.
"Such are the partial laws enacted by men; for, only to lay
a stress on the dependent state of a woman in the grand question
of the comforts arising from the possession of property, she is
[even in this article] much more injured by the loss of the husband's
affection, than he by that of his wife; yet where is she, condemned
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: 'Ah, well, Macumazahn,' he said, 'you must be gentle with me,
for here is not my place. I am weary of it, weary to death of
eating and drinking, of sleeping and giving in marriage. I love
not this soft life in stone houses that takes the heart out of
a man, and turns his strength to water and his flesh to fat.
I love not the white robes and the delicate women, the blowing
of trumpets and the flying of hawks. When we fought the Masai
at the kraal yonder, ah, then life was worth the living, but
here is never a blow struck in anger, and I begin to think I
shall go the way of my fathers and lift Inkosi-kaas no more,'
and he held up the axe and gazed at it in sorrow.
Allan Quatermain |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: perpetuating the new race of La Baudraye.
Jean Athanase Polydore Milaud de la Baudraye, his only son, more than
delicate from his birth, was very evidently the child of a man whose
constitution had early been exhausted by the excesses in which rich
men indulge, who then marry at the first stage of premature old age,
and thus bring degeneracy into the highest circles of society. During
the years of the emigration Madame de la Baudraye, a girl of no
fortune, chosen for her noble birth, had patiently reared this sallow,
sickly boy, for whom she had the devoted love mothers feel for such
changeling creatures. Her death--she was a Casteran de la Tour--
contributed to bring about Monsieur de la Baudraye's return to France.
The Muse of the Department |
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 On Revenues by Xenophon: various disabilities on the resident aliens.[4] And I would further
relieve them from the obligation of serving as hoplites side by side
with the citizen proper; since, beside the personal risk, which is
great, the trouble of quitting trades and homesteads is no trifle.[5]
Incidentally the state itself would benefit by this exemption, if the
citizens were more in the habit of campaigning with one another,
rather than[6] shoulder to shoulder with Lydians, Phrygians, Syrians,
and barbarians from all quarters of the world, who form the staple of
our resident alien class. Besides the advantage [of so weeding the
ranks],[7] it would add a positive lustre to our city, were it
admitted that the men of Athens, her sons, have reliance on themselves
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