Today's Stichomancy for John Glenn
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: Diego fastened a leaf upon the bark of a tree and from
a great distance transfixed it with an arrow, then in succession
sent four others against the trunk, making precisely
the form of a cross. The Indians cried, ``Hai! Hai!''
But when the four harquebus men set up their iron rests,
fixed the harquebuses, and firing cut leaves and twigs from
the same tree, there was a louder crying. And when there
was dragged forth, charged with powder and fired, one of
the lombards taken from the _Santa Maria_, wider yet sprang
the commotion. Pedro Gutierrez and a young cavalier from
the _Nina_ deigned to show lance play, and Vicente Pinzon
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: hermitage. The house, after we had repaired the worst of the
damages, and filled in some of the doors and windows with
white cotton cloth, became a healthy and a pleasant dwelling-
place, always airy and dry, and haunted by the outdoor
perfumes of the glen. Within, it had the look of habitation,
the human look. You had only to go into the third room,
which we did not use, and see its stones, its sifting earth,
its tumbled litter; and then return to our lodging, with the
beds made, the plates on the rack, the pail of bright water
behind the door, the stove crackling in a corner, and perhaps
the table roughly laid against a meal, - and man's order, the
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: be one. Now, lest you should know nothing about him, let me tell
you that at his own expense he fitted out a vessel, and established
himself at Borneo, where he soon acquired so great [an] ascendancy
over the native Rajah, that he insisted on resigning to him the
government of his province of Sarawak. Here, with only three
European companions, by moral and intellectual force alone, he
succeeded in suppressing piracy and civil war among the natives and
opened a trade with the interior of Borneo which promises great
advantages to England. . . . Everybody here has the INFLUENZA--a
right-down influenza, that sends people to their beds. Those who
have triumphed at their exemption in the evening, wake up perhaps in
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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 A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only
our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon
us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever
yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though
often and earnestly invited to it.
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like
expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that
there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them
into practice.
But, as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with
offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly
 A Modest Proposal |
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