Today's Stichomancy for Anonymous
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: due to the Greek critical spirit. To it we owe the epic, the
lyric, the entire drama in every one of its developments, including
burlesque, the idyll, the romantic novel, the novel of adventure,
the essay, the dialogue, the oration, the lecture, for which
perhaps we should not forgive them, and the epigram, in all the
wide meaning of that word. In fact, we owe it everything, except
the sonnet, to which, however, some curious parallels of thought-
movement may be traced in the Anthology, American journalism, to
which no parallel can be found anywhere, and the ballad in sham
Scotch dialect, which one of our most industrious writers has
recently proposed should be made the basis for a final and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: thing from what I meant. He wanted me to be his mistress,
in fact, but I wasn't in love with him--and on my saying I
should go away if he didn't agree to MY plan, he did so.
We shared a sitting-room for fifteen months; and he became
a leader-writer for one of the great London dailies; till he was
taken ill, and had to go abroad. He said I was breaking his
heart by holding out against him so long at such close quarters;
he could never have believed it of woman. I might play that
game once too often, he said. He came home merely to die.
His death caused a terrible remorse in me for my cruelty--
though I hope he died of consumption and not of me entirely.
 Jude the Obscure |
| 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: have none but wealthy and exalted people for friends... Ah! You have
forgotten the old times, have you?
"It is true that many people have forgotten your past, and are charmed by
the sight of your present graceful shape and white wings, and write Chinese
verses and Japanese verses about you. The high-born damsel, who could not
bear even to look at you in your former shape, now gazes at you with
delight, and wants you to perch upon her hairpin, and holds out her dainty
fan in the hope that you will light upon it. But this reminds me that there
is an ancient Chinese story about you, which is not pretty.
"In the time of the Emperor Genso, the Imperial Palace contained hundreds
and thousands of beautiful ladies,-- so many, indeed, that it would have
 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 First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: once to reconstruct his laboratory and proceed with our experiments. Cavor
talked more on my level than he had ever done before, when it came to the
question of how we should make the stuff next.
"Of course we must make it again," he said, with a sort of glee I had not
expected in him, "of course we must make it again. We have caught a
Tartar, perhaps, but we have left the theoretical behind us for good and
all. If we can possibly avoid wrecking this little planet of ours, we
will. But - there must be risks! There must be. In experimental work there
always are. And here, as a practical man, you must come in. For my own
part it seems to me we might make it edgeways, perhaps, and very thin. Yet
I don't know. I have a certain dim perception of another method. I can
 The First Men In The Moon |
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