Today's Stichomancy for Jay Leno
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: She said, and struck; deep enter'd in her side
The piercing steel, with reeking purple dyed:
Clogg'd in the wound the cruel weapon stands;
The spouting blood came streaming on her hands.
Her sad attendants saw the deadly stroke,
And with loud cries the sounding palace shook.
Distracted, from the fatal sight they fled,
And thro' the town the dismal rumor spread.
First from the frighted court the yell began;
Redoubled, thence from house to house it ran:
The groans of men, with shrieks, laments, and cries
Aeneid |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: themselves.
To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if
possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter,
before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been
about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning
from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight,
or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted
the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last
importance only to be present at it.
So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town,
trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express!
Walden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: With many a puff and pant:
Who still, as rises the ascent,
In language grows more violent,
Although in breath more scant:
Who, climbing, gains at length the place
That crowns the upward track.
And, entering with unsteady pace,
Receives a buffet in the face
That lands him on his back:
And feels himself, like one in sleep,
Glide swiftly down again,
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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 Marie by H. Rider Haggard: much that I had found no opportunity of studying before, especially, I
hope, the ideas and standards of English gentlemen.
I had not been back at the Mission Station more than three weeks, quite
long enough for me to begin to be bored with idleness and inactivity,
when that call for which I had been waiting came at last.
One day a "smous", that is a low kind of white man, often a Jew, who
travels about trading with unsophisticated Boers and Kaffirs, and
cheating them if he can, called at the station with his cartful of
goods. I was about to send him away, having no liking for such gentry,
when he asked me if I were named Allan Quatermain. I said "Yes,"
whereon he replied that he had a letter for me, and produced a packet
Marie |
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