Today's Stichomancy for Wassily Kandinsky
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
'Tis promised in the charity of age.
'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgement I am old;
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied
Love to myself, and to no love beside.
'But woe is me! too early I attended
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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 Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: you, at the end of the discourse, that I preserve my own opinion
precisely the same as at the beginning - as would be the case, I am
persuaded, with regard to either logician.'
'Yes, of course,' replied I, determined to be as provoking as
herself; 'for when a lady does consent to listen to an argument
against her own opinions, she is always predetermined to withstand
it - to listen only with her bodily ears, keeping the mental organs
resolutely closed against the strongest reasoning.'
'Good-morning, Mr. Markham,' said my fair antagonist, with a
pitying smile; and deigning no further rejoinder, she slightly
bowed, and was about to withdraw; but her son, with childish
 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: that to which I deny both plurality and unity? You, Theaetetus, have the
might of youth, and I conjure you to exert yourself, and, if you can, to
find an expression for not-being which does not imply being and number.
'But I cannot.' Then the Sophist must be left in his hole. We may call
him an image-maker if we please, but he will only say, 'And pray, what is
an image?' And we shall reply, 'A reflection in the water, or in a
mirror'; and he will say, 'Let us shut our eyes and open our minds; what is
the common notion of all images?' 'I should answer, Such another, made in
the likeness of the true.' Real or not real? 'Not real; at least, not in
a true sense.' And the real 'is,' and the not-real 'is not'? 'Yes.' Then
a likeness is really unreal, and essentially not. Here is a pretty
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: as it was on a lower level than the garden.
On the first floor was Madame's bed-chamber, a large room papered in a
flowered design and containing the portrait of Monsieur dressed in the
costume of a dandy. It communicated with a smaller room, in which
there were two little cribs, without any mattresses. Next, came the
parlour (always closed), filled with furniture covered with sheets.
Then a hall, which led to the study, where books and papers were piled
on the shelves of a book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big
black desk. Two panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink
sketches, Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better
times and vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window
 A Simple Soul |
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