Today's Stichomancy for Nick Cave
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: name of Absalom Jones. Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him.
You see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have
shown the world some generalship that would have made all
generalship before look like child's play and 'prentice work. But
he never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a
private, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth,
and the recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him. However, as I say,
everybody knows, now, what he WOULD have been, - and so they flock
by the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is
going to be anywhere. Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and
Napoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: the wondrous tales of the incursions of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and
the Poles, the bold deeds of Podkova, of Poltar-Kozhukh, and
Sagaidatchnii, did not interest us so much as the stories about some
deed of old which always sent a shiver through our frames and made our
hair rise upright on our heads. Sometimes such terror took possession
of us in consequence of them, that, from that evening forward, Heaven
knows how wonderful everything seemed to us. If one chanced to go out
of the cottage after nightfall for anything, one fancied that a
visitor from the other world had lain down to sleep in one's bed; and
I have often taken my own smock, at a distance, as it lay at the head
of the bed, for the Evil One rolled up into a ball! But the chief
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: and delicate shape;-- that is why they are kind to you.
"Now, in this spring season, while you sportively dance through the
gardens of the wealthy, or hover among the beautiful alleys of cherry-trees
in blossom, you say to yourself: 'Nobody in the world has such pleasure as
I, or such excellent friends. And, in spite of all that people may say, I
most love the peony,-- and the golden yellow rose is my own darling, and I
will obey her every least behest; for that is my pride and my delight.'...
So you say. But the opulent and elegant season of flowers is very short:
soon they will fade and fall. Then, in the time of summer heat, there will
be green leaves only; and presently the winds of autumn will blow, when
even the leaves themselves will shower down like rain, parari-parari. And
Kwaidan |
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 Professor by Charlotte Bronte: I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine
coming to embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in
vain; she kept her sway over me for that night and the next day,
and eight succeeding days. Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to
recover their tone; my appetite returned, and in a fortnight I
was well. I had gone about as usual all the time, and had said
nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad when the evil
spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances, and sit
at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long
The Professor |
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