Today's Stichomancy for Bob Dylan
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander
Trample and tread upon my life; why should I?
They say the common field-flowers of the field
Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on
Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs
Which have no perfume, on being bruised die
With all Arabia round them; so it is
With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,
It does but bring the sweetness out of them,
And makes them lovelier often. And besides,
While we have love we have the best of life:
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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 Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: have still to bring it to perfection. Yesterday, towards evening, I
thought it was finished. Her eyes were liquid, her flesh trembled, her
tresses waved--she breathed! And yet, though I have grasped the secret
of rendering on a flat canvas the relief and roundness of nature, this
morning at dawn I saw many errors. Ah! to attain that glorious result,
I have studied to their depths the masters of color. I have analyzed
and lifted, layer by layer, the colors of Titian, king of light. Like
him, great sovereign of art, I have sketched my figure in light clear
tones of supple yet solid color; for shadow is but an accident,--
remember that, young man. Then I worked backward, as it were; and by
means of half-tints, and glazings whose transparency I kept
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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 Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: protecting a woman. He met Joseph Bridau, one of his comrades, and one
of those eccentric geniuses destined to fame and sorrow. Joseph
Bridau, who had, to use his own expression, a few sous in his pocket,
took Fougeres to the Opera. But Fougeres didn't see the ballet, didn't
hear the music; he was imagining pictures, he was painting. He left
Joseph in the middle of the evening, and ran home to make sketches by
lamp-light. He invented thirty pictures, all reminiscence, and felt
himself a man of genius. The next day he bought colors, and canvases
of various dimensions; he piled up bread and cheese on his table, he
filled a water-pot with water, he laid in a provision of wood for his
stove; then, to use a studio expression, he dug at his pictures. He
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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 Richard III by William Shakespeare: We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor
This day had plotted, in the council-house,
To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.
MAYOR. Had he done so?
GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?
Or that we would, against the form of law,
Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death
But that the extreme peril of the case,
The peace of England and our persons' safety,
Enforc'd us to this execution?
MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv'd his death;
Richard III |
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