Today's Stichomancy for Karl Rove
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them.
One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing
to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten.
At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which,
though it seemed locked, gave a little under pressure.
I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked,
but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges
had fallen somewhat,and the heavy door rested on the floor.
Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted
myself,and with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter.
I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: it was, and then I might have been, by staying here, something
nearer to one of these types who have been hammered so hard and
made so keen by their conditions. It isn't that I admire them so
much - the question of any charm in them, or of any charm, beyond
that of the rank money-passion, exerted by their conditions FOR
them, has nothing to do with the matter: it's only a question of
what fantastic, yet perfectly possible, development of my own
nature I mayn't have missed. It comes over me that I had then a
strange ALTER EGO deep down somewhere within me, as the full-blown
flower is in the small tight bud, and that I just took the course,
I just transferred him to the climate, that blighted him for once
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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 The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: together. "Really, it's a sin for you to wear clothes, my dear.
Somebody's got to tell you some day."
The water was quite warm. It was that marvellous transparent blue, flecked
with silver, but the sand at the bottom looked gold; when you kicked with
your toes there rose a little puff of gold-dust. Now the waves just
reached her breast. Beryl stood, her arms outstretched, gazing out, and as
each wave came she gave the slightest little jump, so that it seemed it was
the wave which lifted her so gently.
"I believe in pretty girls having a good time," said Mrs. Harry Kember.
"Why not? Don't you make a mistake, my dear. Enjoy yourself." And
suddenly she turned turtle, disappeared, and swam away quickly, quickly,
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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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the
other stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted;
the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards
the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor's men never heeding their
gaze for the lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over
the taffrail, eyed the homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a
small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial,
seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that
vial was filled with Nantucket soundings.
CHAPTER 116
The Dying Whale.
Moby Dick |
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