Today's Stichomancy for Robert Downey Jr.
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: fight of an unfortunate marriage. In other ways, it is true he was
one of the most unfit for such a trial. And it was his beautiful
destiny to remain to the last hour the same absolute and romantic
lover, who had shown to his new bride the flag-draped vessels in
the Mersey. No fate is altogether easy; but trials are our
touchstone, trials overcome our reward; and it was given to
Fleeming to conquer. It was given to him to live for another, not
as a task, but till the end as an enchanting pleasure. 'People may
write novels,' he wrote in 1869, 'and other people may write poems,
but not a man or woman among them can write to say how happy a man
may be, who is desperately in love with his wife after ten years of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of
the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left.
But in the primitive state of the country, its mountains were high hills
covered with soil, and the plains, as they are termed by us, of Phelleus
were full of rich earth, and there was abundance of wood in the mountains.
Of this last the traces still remain, for although some of the mountains
now only afford sustenance to bees, not so very long ago there were still
to be seen roofs of timber cut from trees growing there, which were of a
size sufficient to cover the largest houses; and there were many other high
trees, cultivated by man and bearing abundance of food for cattle.
Moreover, the land reaped the benefit of the annual rainfall, not as now
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: how great is the property of the Spartan kings? And their wives are under
the guardianship of the Ephori, who are public officers and watch over
them, in order to preserve as far as possible the purity of the Heracleid
blood. Still greater is the difference among the Persians; for no one
entertains a suspicion that the father of a prince of Persia can be any one
but the king. Such is the awe which invests the person of the queen, that
any other guard is needless. And when the heir of the kingdom is born, all
the subjects of the king feast; and the day of his birth is for ever
afterwards kept as a holiday and time of sacrifice by all Asia; whereas,
when you and I were born, Alcibiades, as the comic poet says, the
neighbours hardly knew of the important event. After the birth of the
|
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 Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: During the first revolution, that is from March till October
1917, he fought hard against the workmen, and was one
of the founders of a Soviet of factory owners, the object of
which was to defeat the efforts of the workers' Soviets.*
[(*)By agreeing upon lock-outs,etc.] This, of course,
was smashed by the October Revolution, and "Uncle, after
being forced, as a property owner, to pay considerable
contributions, watched the newspapers closely, realized that
after the nationalization of the banks resistance was
hopeless, and resigned himself to do what he could, not to
lose his factory altogether."
|
|
|