Today's Stichomancy for T. S. Eliot
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: among men whereby we must be saved, says Peter, Acts 4, 12.
And with His stripes we are healed, Is. 53, 5. And upon this
article all things depend which we teach and practice in
opposition to the Pope, the devil, and the [whole] world.
Therefore, we must be sure concerning this doctrine, and not
doubt; for otherwise all is lost, and the Pope and devil and
all things gain the victory and suit over us.
Article II: Of the Mass.
That the Mass in the Papacy must be the greatest and most
horrible abomination, as it directly and powerfully conflicts
with this chief article, and yet above and before all other
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.
'O Jove!' quoth she, 'how much a fool was I,
To be of such a weak and silly mind 1016
To wail his death who lives and must not die
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;
For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again. 1020
'Fie, fie, fond love! thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm'd with thieves
Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.' 1024
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: nothing to fear from epidemics, and (what is even more important)
who would have to bear the expenses of sanitary improvements. But
so sanguine, so reckless of human conditions had their theories
made them, that they actually expected that parish rectors,
already burdened with over-work and vestry quarrels--nay, even
that preachers who got their bread by pew-rents, and whose life-
long struggle was, therefore, to keep those pews filled, and those
renters in good humour--should astound the respectable house-
owners and ratepayers who sat beneath them by the appalling words:
"You, and not the 'Visitation of God,' are the cause of epidemics;
and of you, now that you are once fairly warned of your
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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 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: an old deaf woman who was in the act of closing her window,
the third singed the shoulder of an officer; a woman screamed:
"They are beginning too soon!" and all at once, a squadron
of dragoons which had remained in the barracks up to this time,
was seen to debouch at a gallop with bared swords, through the Rue
Bassompierre and the Boulevard Bourdon, sweeping all before them.
Then all is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down,
a fusillade breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom
of the bank, and pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in,
the timber-yards of the Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand,
bristle with combatants, stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired,
Les Miserables |
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