Today's Stichomancy for John D. Rockefeller
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: when child-bearing was persistent and incessant, regarded it hardly as a
toil, but rather as the reward of labour; has our right hand lost its
cunning and our heart its strength, that today, when human labour is easier
and humanity's work grows fairer, you say to us, 'You can do nothing now
but child-bear'? Do you dare to say this, to us, when the upward path of
the race has been watered by the sweat of our brow, and the sides of the
road by which humanity has climbed are whitened on either hand by the bones
of the womanhood that has fallen there, toiling beside man? Do you dare
say this, to us, when even today the food you eat, the clothes you wear,
the comfort you enjoy, is largely given you by the unending muscular toil
of woman?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: he seemed unable to satisfy his own sense of their kindness,
especially of Mrs Harville's exertions as a nurse. "She really left
nothing for Mary to do. He and Mary had been persuaded to go early
to their inn last night. Mary had been hysterical again this morning.
When he came away, she was going to walk out with Captain Benwick,
which, he hoped, would do her good. He almost wished she had been
prevailed on to come home the day before; but the truth was,
that Mrs Harville left nothing for anybody to do."
Charles was to return to Lyme the same afternoon, and his father
had at first half a mind to go with him, but the ladies could not consent.
It would be going only to multiply trouble to the others,
Persuasion |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: five-and-twenty louis one day, you will be accused of gambling on
the next, and your best friends will report that you have lost
twenty-five thousand. If you have a headache, you will be
considered mad. If you are a little hasty, no one can live with
you. If, to make a stand against this armament of pigmies, you
collect your best powers, your best friends will cry out that you
want to have everything, that you aim at domineering, at tyranny.
In short, your good points will become your faults, your faults
will be vices, and your virtues crime.
"If you save a man, you will be said to have killed him; if he
reappears on the scene, it will be positive that you have secured
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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 The Message by Honore de Balzac: The nearer I came to the Chateau de Montpersan, the more aghast I
felt at the idea of my strange self-imposed pilgrimage. Vast
numbers of romantic fancies ran in my head. I imagined all kinds
of situations in which I might find this Comtesse de Montpersan,
or, to observe the laws of romance, this Juliette, so
passionately beloved of my traveling companion. I sketched out
ingenious answers to the questions which she might be supposed to
put to me. At every turn of a wood, in every beaten pathway, I
rehearsed a modern version of the scene in which Sosie describes
the battle to his lantern. To my shame be it said, I had thought
at first of nothing but the part that _I_ was to play, of my own
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