Today's Stichomancy for Cindy Crawford
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: the fact that they punish evil-doers, with a view to prevention, of course
--mere retribution is for beasts, and not for men. (3) Again, would
parents who teach her sons lesser matters leave them ignorant of the common
duty of citizens? To the doubt of Socrates the best answer is the fact,
that the education of youth in virtue begins almost as soon as they can
speak, and is continued by the state when they pass out of the parental
control. (4) Nor need we wonder that wise and good fathers sometimes have
foolish and worthless sons. Virtue, as we were saying, is not the private
possession of any man, but is shared by all, only however to the extent of
which each individual is by nature capable. And, as a matter of fact, even
the worst of civilized mankind will appear virtuous and just, if we compare
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: rooms are not to be kept quiet longer, even by hunches of bread and cake;
there is a general howl and wail, that rises yet higher than the scraping
of fiddles, and mothers rush from their partners to knock small heads
together, and cuff little nursemaids, and force the wailers down into
unoccupied corners of beds, under tables and behind boxes. In half an hour
every variety of childish snore is heard on all sides, and it has become
perilous to raise or set down a foot in any of the side-rooms lest a small
head or hand should be crushed.
Now too the busy feet have broken the solid coating of the floor, and a
cloud of fine dust arises, that makes a yellow halo round the candles, and
sets asthmatic people coughing, and grows denser, till to recognise any one
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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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: as though we were men to whom you must talk politics or commerce;
whereas we are young girls, and you ought to tell us tales while you
drink your tea. That is what we do, Monsieur Wilfrid, in our long
Norwegian evenings. Come, dear pastor, tell me some Saga that I have
not heard,--that of Frithiof, the chronicle that you believe and have
so often promised me. Tell us the story of the peasant lad who owned
the ship that talked and had a soul. Come! I dream of the frigate
Ellida, the fairy with the sails young girls should navigate!"
"Since we have returned to the regions of Jarvis," said Wilfrid, whose
eyes were fastened on Seraphita as those of a robber, lurking in the
darkness, fasten on the spot where he knows the jewels lie, "tell me
 Seraphita |
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 The Republic by Plato: must be divided by the cube of 3. In other words, the whole expression
will be: (1), for the first harmony, 400/9: (2), for the second harmony,
8000/27.'
The reasons which have inclined me to agree with Dr. Donaldson and also
with Schleiermacher in supposing that 216 is the Platonic number of births
are: (1) that it coincides with the description of the number given in the
first part of the passage (Greek...): (2) that the number 216 with its
permutations would have been familiar to a Greek mathematician, though
unfamiliar to us: (3) that 216 is the cube of 6, and also the sum of 3
cubed, 4 cubed, 5 cubed, the numbers 3, 4, 5 representing the Pythagorean
triangle, of which the sides when squared equal the square of the
 The Republic |
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