Today's Stichomancy for Bruce Willis
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: Dalgetty, "when I was in no shape bound to continue mine
adherence. There are things, my lord, in that service, that
cannot but go against the stomach of any cavalier of honour. In
especial, albeit the pay be none of the most superabundant, being
only about sixty dollars a-month to a ritt-master, yet the
invincible Gustavus never paid above one-third of that sum, whilk
was distributed monthly by way of loan; although, when justly
considered, it was, in fact, a borrowing by that great monarch of
the additional two-thirds which were due to the soldier. And I
have seen some whole regiments of Dutch and Holsteiners mutiny on
the field of battle, like base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: instructions to apprehend certain of the inhabitants and helots, whose
names were written on the scytale (or scroll).[10] He had further
instructions to capture another resident in Aulon; this was a woman,
the fashionable beauty of the place--supposed to be the arch-
corruptress of all Lacedaemonians, young and old, who visited Aulon.
It was not the first mission of the sort on which Cinadon had been
employed by the ephors. It was natural, therefore, that the ephors
should entrust him with the scytale on which the names of the suspects
were inscribed; and in answer to his inquiry which of the young men he
was to take with him, they said: "Go and order the eldest of the
Hippagretae[11] (or commanders of horse) to let you have six or seven
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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 The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: by this means nearly all the richest mines have there been
discovered. Chanuncillo, from which silver to the value of
many hundred thousand pounds has been raised in the course
of a few years, was discovered by a man who threw a stone
at his loaded donkey, and thinking that it was very heavy, he
picked it up, and found it full of pure silver: the vein
occurred at no great distance, standing up like a wedge of
metal. The miners, also, taking a crowbar with them, often
wander on Sundays over the mountains. In this south part
of Chile, the men who drive cattle into the Cordillera, and
who frequent every ravine where there is a little pasture, are
The Voyage of the Beagle |
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 Salome by Oscar Wilde: n'est-ce pas? je te l'ai dit. Eh bien! je la baiserai maintenant .
. . Mais pourquoi ne me regardes-tu pas, Iokanaan? Tes yeux qui
etaient si terribles, qui etaient si pleins de colere et de mepris,
ils sont fermes maintenant. Pourquoi sont-ils fermes? Ouvre tes
yeux! Souleve tes paupieres, Iokanaan. Pourquoi ne me regardes-tu
pas? As-tu peur de moi, Iokanaan, que tu ne veux pas me regarder? .
. . Et ta langue qui etait comme un serpent rouge dardant des
poisons, elle ne remue plus, elle ne dit rien maintenant, Iokanaan,
cette vipere rouge qui a vomi son venin sur moi. C'est etrange,
n'est-ce pas? Comment se fait-il que la vipere rouge ne remue plus?
. . . Tu n'as pas voulu de moi, Iokanaan. Tu m'as rejetee. Tu m'as
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