Today's Stichomancy for Werner Heisenberg
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: Lysimachus is extremely graceful; and his military exploits naturally
connect him with the two generals, of whom one has witnessed them. The
characters of Nicias and Laches are indicated by their opinions on the
exhibition of the man fighting in heavy armour. The more enlightened
Nicias is quite ready to accept the new art, which Laches treats with
ridicule, seeming to think that this, or any other military question, may
be settled by asking, 'What do the Lacedaemonians say?' The one is the
thoughtful general, willing to avail himself of any discovery in the art of
war (Aristoph. Aves); the other is the practical man, who relies on his own
experience, and is the enemy of innovation; he can act but cannot speak,
and is apt to lose his temper. It is to be noted that one of them is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: friendship.' Thus, among their intricate hills, the rustic troop
subsisted; and history can attribute few exploits to them but
sacraments and ecstasies.
People of this tough and simple stock will not, as I have just been
saying, prove variable in religion; nor will they get nearer to
apostasy than a mere external conformity like that of Naaman in the
house of Rimmon. When Louis XVI., in the words of the edict,
'convinced by the uselessness of a century of persecutions, and
rather from necessity than sympathy,' granted at last a royal grace
of toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant; and to a man, it is
so to this day. There is, indeed, one family that is not
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: and the birds in the grove about the House Beautiful, 'our
country birds,' only sing their little pious verses 'at the
spring, when the flowers appear and the sun shines warm.' 'I
often,' says Piety, 'go out to hear them; we also ofttimes
keep them tame on our house.' The post between Beulah and
the Celestial City sounds his horn, as you may yet hear in
country places. Madam Bubble, that 'tall, comely dame,
something of a swarthy complexion, in very pleasant attire,
but old,' 'gives you a smile at the end of each sentence' - a
real woman she; we all know her. Christiana dying 'gave Mr.
Stand-fast a ring,' for no possible reason in the allegory,
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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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: suffer thereby or immediately to lose his life. And yet we could tell of
many who, having long desired and diligently laboured to obtain a tyranny,
thinking that thus they would procure an advantage, have nevertheless
fallen victims to designing enemies. You must have heard of what happened
only the other day, how Archelaus of Macedonia was slain by his beloved
(compare Aristotle, Pol.), whose love for the tyranny was not less than
that of Archelaus for him. The tyrannicide expected by his crime to become
tyrant and afterwards to have a happy life; but when he had held the
tyranny three or four days, he was in his turn conspired against and slain.
Or look at certain of our own citizens,--and of their actions we have been
not hearers, but eyewitnesses,--who have desired to obtain military
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