Today's Stichomancy for Lewis Carroll
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: vallo fossaque munivit.
Cum dies hibernorum complures transissent frumentumque eo comportari
iussisset, subito per exploratores certior factus est ex ea parte vici,
quam Gallis concesserat, omnes noctu discessisse montesque qui impenderent
a maxima multitudine Sedunorum et Veragrorum teneri. Id aliquot de causis
acciderat, ut subito Galli belli renovandi legionisque opprimendae
consilium caperent: primum, quod legionem neque eam plenissimam detractis
cohortibus duabus et compluribus singillatim, qui commeatus petendi causa
missi erant, absentibus propter paucitatem despiciebant; tum etiam, quod
propter iniquitatem loci, cum ipsi ex montibus in vallem decurrerent et
tela coicerent, ne primum quidem impetum suum posse sustineri
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: seemed to him that something within must burst, must break. He
flung himself down upon his bed, biting the coverings in order to
stifle his outcry, to smother the sounds of his despair. What
crime had he ever done, oh God! that he should be made to suffer
thus?--was it for this he had been permitted to live? had been
rescued from the sea and carried round all the world unscathed?
Why should he live to remember, to suffer, to agonize? Was not
Ramirez wiser?
How long the contest within him lasted, he never knew; but ere it
was done, he had become, in more ways than one, a changed man.
For the first,--though not indeed for the last time,--something
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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 Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: prisoner. He therefore occupied most of the passes with troops
and captains, and, himself, mounting his chariot, gave furious
chase along the one road of which he was especially suspicious,
being minded to surprise Barlaam at all costs. But though he
toiled by the space of six full days, his labour was but spent in
vain. Then he himself remained behind in one of his palaces
situate in the country, but sent forward Araches, with horsemen
not a few, as far as the wilderness of Senaar, in quest of
Barlaam. When Araches arrived in that place, he threw all the
neighbour folk into commotion: and when they constantly affirmed
that they had never seen the man, he went forth into the desert
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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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: psychopathical phenomena. Borderland insanity, crankiness,
insane temperament, loss of mental balance, psychopathic
degeneration (to use a few of the many synonyms by which it has
been called), has certain peculiarities and liabilities which,
when combined with a superior quality of intellect in an
individual, make it more probable that he will make his mark and
affect his age, than if his temperament were less neurotic.
There is of course no special affinity between crankiness as such
and superior intellect,[7] for most psychopaths have feeble
intellects, and superior intellects more commonly have normal
nervous systems. But the psychopathic temperament, whatever be
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