Today's Stichomancy for Robert Frost
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: slender it seemed amidst the outrageous breakers, so frail and
pretty, he would scarce have wondered to see it sink and
disappear without a sound, and the waves close smoothly over
its descent.
Meanwhile the captain was in the forecross-trees, glass in
hand, his eyes in every quarter, spying for an entrance, spying
for signs of tenancy. But the isle continued to unfold itself in
joints, and to run out in indeterminate capes, and still there
was neither house nor man, nor the smoke of fire. Here a
multitude of sea-birds soared and twinkled, and fished in the
blue waters; and there, and for miles together, the fringe of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: of wooden pillars resting on square stone blocks, and forming arches.
Two archways open on to the little garden; two others, facing the
front gateway, lead to a wooden staircase, with an iron balustrade
that was once a miracle of smith's work, so whimsical are the shapes
given to the metal; the worn steps creak under every tread. The
entrance to each flat has an architrave dark with dirt, grease, and
dust, and outer doors, covered with Utrecht velvet set with brass
nails, once gilt, in a diamond pattern. These relics of splendor show
that in the time of Louis XIV. the house was the residence of some
councillor to the Parlement, some rich priests, or some treasurer of
the ecclesiastical revenue. But these vestiges of former luxury bring
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: shoemaking, carpentering, and the like. But Socrates rejoins, that this
answer contains too much and also too little. For although Theaetetus has
enumerated several kinds of knowledge, he has not explained the common
nature of them; as if he had been asked, 'What is clay?' and instead of
saying 'Clay is moistened earth,' he had answered, 'There is one clay of
image-makers, another of potters, another of oven-makers.' Theaetetus at
once divines that Socrates means him to extend to all kinds of knowledge
the same process of generalization which he has already learned to apply to
arithmetic. For he has discovered a division of numbers into square
numbers, 4, 9, 16, etc., which are composed of equal factors, and represent
figures which have equal sides, and oblong numbers, 3, 5, 6, 7, etc., which
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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 Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: In their joint life, outwardly so quiet, there was the one disturbing
element--the weakness to which Pons sacrificed, the insatiable craving
to dine out. Whenever Schmucke happened to be at home while Pons was
dressing for the evening, the good German would bewail this deplorable
habit.
"Gif only he vas ony fatter vor it!" he many a time cried.
And Schmucke would dream of curing his friend of his degrading vice,
for a true friend's instinct in all that belongs to the inner life is
unerring as a dog's sense of smell; a friend knows by intuition the
trouble in his friend's soul, and guesses at the cause and ponders it
in his heart.
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