Today's Stichomancy for Ho Chi Minh
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: displayed all the gifts of all the divinities of Olympus. He
claimed from her, Venus, like favors for his son: was it possible
to grant them? Jupiter dropped his head and meditated. He could
not answer the question at once: Apollo, the Graces, and the Muses
must be consulted: there were few precedents where the son had
succeeded in rivalling the father,--yet the father's pious wishes
could not be overlooked.
Venus said,--
"What I asked for Prince Alexis was for HIS sake: what I ask for
the son is for the father's sake."
Jupiter shook his thunderbolt and called "Apollo!"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: the Cornish tin-mines. You may pick the Welsh emigrants,
Cornish miners, out of the throng passing the windows, any day.
They are a trifle more filthy; their muscles are not so brawny;
they stoop more. When they are drunk, they neither yell, nor
shout, nor stagger, but skulk along like beaten hounds. A pure,
unmixed blood, I fancy: shows itself in the slight angular
bodies and sharply-cut facial lines. It is nearly thirty years
since the Wolfes lived here. Their lives were like those of
their class: incessant labor, sleeping in kennel-like rooms,
eating rank pork and molasses, drinking--God and the distillers
only know what; with an occasional night in jail, to atone for
 Life in the Iron-Mills |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: to men to be good and right, and to turn men, with a single mind,
to the simple meaning of God's commandment only, that they shall
diligently observe this only and always, as it is written, Exodus
xiii: "These commandments shall be for a sign unto thee upon
thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes." And Psalm i:
"A godly man meditates in God's Law day and night." For we have
more than enough and too much to do, if we are to satisfy only
God's commandments. He has given us such commandments that if we
understand them aright, we dare not for a moment be idle, and
might easily forget all other works. But the evil spirit, who
never rests, when he cannot lead us to the left into evil works,
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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 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally
amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is
best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have.
Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments
are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
The objections which have been brought against a standing army,
and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail,
may also at last be brought against a standing government.
The standing army is only an arm of the standing government.
The government itself, which is only the mode which the people
 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
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