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 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: and direct the affairs of the house for me; because, in the first
place, I hoped we should spend the greater part of the year, in
town, and in the second place, being so young and inexperienced, I
was frightened at the idea of having a houseful of servants to
manage, and dinners to order, and parties to entertain, and all the
rest of it, and I thought she might assist me with her experience;
never dreaming she would prove a usurper, a tyrant, an incubus, a
spy, and everything else that's detestable. I wish she was dead!'
She then turned to give her orders to the footman, who had been
standing bolt upright within the door for the last half minute, and
had heard the latter part of her animadversions; and, of course,
Agnes Grey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: The first thing I heard when I came to myself was the maddening
howling of that endless gale, and on that the voice of the old man.
He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face out of his sou'wester.
"`Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can act no longer
as chief mate of this ship.'"
His care to subdue his voice made it sound monotonous.
He rested a hand on the end of the skylight to steady himself with,
and all that time did not stir a limb, so far as I could see.
"Nice little tale for a quiet tea party," he concluded
in the same tone.
One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the skylight; neither did I stir
The Secret Sharer |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: The building rose from an island in the circling stream,
so that this formed a perfect moat spanned by a two-arched
bridge without a parapet. The dull brick walls, which here
and there made a grand, straight sweep; the ugly little cupolas
of the wings, the deep-set windows, the long, steep pinnacles
of mossy slate, all mirrored themselves in the tranquil river.
Newman rang at the gate, and was almost frightened at the tone
with which a big rusty bell above his head replied to him.
An old woman came out from the gate-house and opened
the creaking portal just wide enough for him to pass,
and he went in, across the dry, bare court and the little
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: Lawgiver of all the earth should be educated, rather than by his own
kindred;--how that great Egyptian people, wisest then of nations,
gave to their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a Woman; and into her
hand, for a symbol, the weaver's shuttle; and how the name and the
form of that spirit, adopted, believed, and obeyed by the Greeks,
became that Athena of the olive-helm, and cloudy shield, to faith in
whom you owe, down to this date, whatever you hold most precious in
art, in literature, or in types of national virtue.
But I will not wander into this distant and mythical element; I will
only ask you to give its legitimate value to the testimony of these
great poets and men of the world,--consistent, as you see it is, on
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