Today's Stichomancy for Meyer Lansky
The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: then the summits.
The natives were there, more numerous than on the day before--
five or six hundred perhaps--some of them, profiting by the low water,
had come on to the coral, at less than two cable-lengths from the Nautilus.
I distinguished them easily; they were true Papuans, with athletic figures,
men of good race, large high foreheads, large, but not broad and flat,
and white teeth. Their woolly hair, with a reddish tinge, showed off on their
black shining bodies like those of the Nubians. From the lobes of their ears,
cut and distended, hung chaplets of bones. Most of these savages were naked.
Amongst them, I remarked some women, dressed from the hips to knees
in quite a crinoline of herbs, that sustained a vegetable waistband.
 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Bitter autumn blows,
And of all the stupid asters
Not one knows.
When Love Goes
I
O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.
"Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead."
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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 Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: articles of plate, lent for the purpose by friends and kinsfolk,
those had been carefully withdrawn so soon as the ostentatious
display of festivity, equally unnecessary and strangely timed,
had been made and ended. Nothing, in short, remained that
indicated wealth; all the signs were those of recent
wastefulness and present desolation. The black cloth hangings,
which, on the late mournful occasion, replaced the tattered moth-
eaten tapestries, had been partly pulled down, and, dangling
from the wall in irregular festoons, disclosed the rough
stonework of the building, unsmoothed either by plaster or the
chisel. The seats thrown down, or left in disorder, intimated
 The Bride of Lammermoor |
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 Persuasion by Jane Austen: and her boots were so thick! much thicker than Miss Anne's;
and, in short, her civility rendered her quite as anxious to be left
to walk with Mr Elliot as Anne could be, and it was discussed between them
with a generosity so polite and so determined, that the others were
obliged to settle it for them; Miss Elliot maintaining that Mrs Clay
had a little cold already, and Mr Elliot deciding on appeal,
that his cousin Anne's boots were rather the thickest.
It was fixed accordingly, that Mrs Clay should be of the party
in the carriage; and they had just reached this point, when Anne,
as she sat near the window, descried, most decidedly and distinctly,
Captain Wentworth walking down the street.
 Persuasion |
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