Today's Stichomancy for Werner Heisenberg
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: the same places, back again to the Sofala's port of regis-
try on the great highway to the East, where he would
take up a berth nearly opposite the big stone pile of
the harbor office till it was time to start again on the
old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very
enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry
Whalley, otherwise Dare-devil Harry--Whalley of the
Condor, a famous clipper in her day. No. Not a very
enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms,
who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of
them his own); who had made famous passages, had
 End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: and brought her over hither to his mother who was then living.
He liver here several years with her,' continued she, 'and had
several children by her, of which the young gentleman that was
with him now was one; but after some time, the old gentlewoman,
his mother, talking to her of something relating to herself when
she was in England, and of her circumstances in England,
which were bad enough, the daughter-in-law began to be very
much surprised and uneasy; and, in short, examining further
into things, it appeared past all contradiction that the old
gentlewoman was her own mother, and that consequently that
son was his wife's own brother, which struck the whole family
 Moll Flanders |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: Bastile by a lettre de cachet; yet Figaro may have known and seen
enough to excuse him, when lettres de cachet were abolished, for
handing the Marquis over to a Comite de Salut Public. Disappointed
play-actors, like Collet d'Herbois; disappointed poets, like Fabre
d'Olivet, were, they say, especially ferocious. Why not?
Ingenious, sensitive spirits, used as lap-dogs and singing-birds by
men and women whom they felt to be their own flesh and blood, they
had, it may be, a juster appreciation of the actual worth of their
patrons than had our own Pitt and Burke. They had played the valet:
and no man was a hero to them. They had seen the nobleman expose
himself before his own helots: they would try if the helot was not
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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 Enemies of Books by William Blades: He at once offered 14,000 francs for them, which was accepted.
Imagine the surprise and chagrin of the poor monks when they heard of it!
They knew they had no remedy, and so dumbfounded were they
by their own ignorance, that they humbly requested M. Vanderberg
to relieve their minds by returning some portion of his large gains.
He gave them 1,200 francs.
The great Shakespearian and other discoveries, which were
found in a garret at Lamport Hall in 1867 by Mr. Edmonds,
are too well-known and too recent to need description.
In this case mere chance seems to have led to the preservation
of works, the very existence of which set the ears of all lovers
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