Today's Stichomancy for Jack Kerouac
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: Wizard of the Wind breathed upon its face, and made it green;--
Saw the immeasurable panics,--noiseless, scintillant,--which
silver, summer after summer, curved leagues of beach with bodies
of little fish--the yearly massacre of migrating populations,
nations of sea-trout, driven from their element by terror;--and
the winnowing of shark-fins,--and the rushing of porpoises,--and
the rising of the grande-ecaille, like a pillar of flame,--and
the diving and pitching and fighting of the frigates and the
gulls,--and the armored hordes of crabs swarming out to clear the
slope after the carnage and the gorging had been done;--
Saw the Dreams of the Sky,--scudding mockeries of ridged
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: possibilities of eating-houses, she spent the whole of her
quarter upon supper for herself and Hilda, and had nothing left
wherewith to buy a lodging.
The night was dreadful; Hilda sobbed herself to sleep on her
mother's shoulder, waking thereafter from hour to hour, to
protest, though wrapped in her mother's shawl, that she was cold,
and to enquire why they did not go to bed. Drunken men snored
and sprawled near at hand. Towards morning, a loafer, reeking of
alcohol, sat down beside her, and indulged in an incoherent
soliloquy, punctuated with oaths and obscenities. It was not
till far along towards daylight that she fell asleep.
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: readers, or give variety to my theme, but, as Ismenias, the
Theban, used to show his scholars good and bad performers on the
flute, and to tell them, "You should play like this man," and
"You should not play like that," and as Antigenidas used to say,
Young people would take greater pleasure in hearing good
playing, if first they were set to hear bad, so, and in the same
manner, it seems to me likely enough that we shall be all the
more zealous and more emulous to read, observe, and imitate the
better lives, if we are not left in ignorance of the blameworthy
and the bad.
For this reason, the following book contains the lives of
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: the baptism and the church-going, except that Dolly had said it was
for the good of the child; and in this way, as the weeks grew to
months, the child created fresh and fresh links between his life and
the lives from which he had hitherto shrunk continually into
narrower isolation. Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must
be worshipped in close-locked solitude--which was hidden away from
the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human
tones--Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing
desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living
movements; making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and
stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her. The
Silas Marner |
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