Today's Stichomancy for The Rock
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: very great help to me that I had, among all the men's clothes of
the ship, almost three dozen of shirts. There were also, indeed,
several thick watch-coats of the seamen's which were left, but they
were too hot to wear; and though it is true that the weather was so
violently hot that there was no need of clothes, yet I could not go
quite naked - no, though I had been inclined to it, which I was not
- nor could I abide the thought of it, though I was alone. The
reason why I could not go naked was, I could not bear the heat of
the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on; nay, the
very heat frequently blistered my skin: whereas, with a shirt on,
the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, was
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: actually is.
But, as a matter of fact, Siegfried did not succeed and Bismarck
did. Roeckel was a prisoner whose mposonment made no difference;
Bakoonin broke up, not Walhall, but the International, which
ended in an undignified quarrel between him and Karl Marx. The
Siegfrieds of 1848 were hopeless political failures, whereas the
Wotans and Alberics and Lows were conspicuous political
successes. Even the Mimes held their own as against Siegfried.
With the single exception of Ferdinand Lassalle, there was no
revolutionary leader who was not an obvious impossibilist in
practical politics; and Lassalle got himself killed in a romantic
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: Deep indignation swell'd Saturnia's heart:
"And must I own," she said, "my secret smart-
What with more decence were in silence kept,
And, but for this unjust reproach, had slept?
Did god or man your fav'rite son advise,
With war unhop'd the Latians to surprise?
By fate, you boast, and by the gods' decree,
He left his native land for Italy!
Confess the truth; by mad Cassandra, more
Than Heav'n inspir'd, he sought a foreign shore!
Did I persuade to trust his second Troy
Aeneid |
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 Phaedo by Plato: love of God and man, working out His will at a further stage in the
heavenly pilgrimage. And yet we acknowledge that these are the things
which eye hath not seen nor ear heard and therefore it hath not entered
into the heart of man in any sensible manner to conceive them. Fourthly,
there may have been some moments in our own lives when we have risen above
ourselves, or been conscious of our truer selves, in which the will of God
has superseded our wills, and we have entered into communion with Him, and
been partakers for a brief season of the Divine truth and love, in which
like Christ we have been inspired to utter the prayer, 'I in them, and thou
in me, that we may be all made perfect in one.' These precious moments, if
we have ever known them, are the nearest approach which we can make to the
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