Today's Stichomancy for Leonard Cohen
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: of Christian stoicism,--a noble doctrine, which gave life to his
existence, and colored his latter days with the warm, and at the same
time chilling, tones which gild the sunsets of winter. His head, thin
and hollowed and swarthy, with ochre and bistre tints harmoniously
blended, offered a striking likeness to that which artists bestow on
Time, though it vulgarized it; for the habits of commercial life
lowered the stern and monumental character which painters, sculptors,
and clock-makers exaggerate. Of medium height, Pillerault was more
thick-set than stout; Nature had built him for hard work and long
life; his broad shoulders showed a strong frame; he was dry by
temperament, and his skin had, as it were, no emotions, though it was
 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: of the world--the COMPULSION to great politics.
209. As to how far the new warlike age on which we Europeans have
evidently entered may perhaps favour the growth of another and
stronger kind of skepticism, I should like to express myself
preliminarily merely by a parable, which the lovers of German
history will already understand. That unscrupulous enthusiast for
big, handsome grenadiers (who, as King of Prussia, brought into
being a military and skeptical genius--and therewith, in reality,
the new and now triumphantly emerged type of German), the
problematic, crazy father of Frederick the Great, had on one
point the very knack and lucky grasp of the genius: he knew what
 Beyond Good and Evil |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Home to your cottages, forsake this groom.
The king is merciful, if you revolt.
BROTHER.
But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood,
If you go forward; therefore yield, or die.
CADE.
As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not;
It is to you, good people, that I speak,
OVer whom, in time to come, I hope to reign,
For I am rightful heir unto the crown.
STAFFORD.
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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 Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: rabbit-burrows; which was rough practice, certainly; but a man must
see to his own family.
And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, it began to blow
right hard; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat, who looks
after the big copper boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had got
behindhand with his work; so Mother Carey had sent an electric
message to him for more steam; and now the steam was coming, as
much in an hour as ought to have come in a week, puffing and
roaring and swishing and swirling, till you could not see where the
sky ended and the sea began. But Tom and the petrels never cared,
for the gale was right abaft, and away they went over the crests of
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