Today's Stichomancy for John Wilkes Booth
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: us of our course without dishonour to ourselves or hurt to others,
and, when the day comes, may die in peace. Deliver us from fear
and favour: from mean hopes and cheap pleasures. Have mercy on
each in his deficiency; let him be not cast down; support the
stumbling on the way, and give at last rest to the weary.
AT MORNING
THE day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating
concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform
them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with
industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day,
bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: blind Bowe-boyes but-shaft, and is he a man to encounter
Tybalt?
Ben. Why what is Tibalt?
Mer. More then Prince of Cats. Oh hee's the Couragious
Captaine of Complements: he fights as you sing
pricksong, keeps time, distance, and proportion, he rests
his minum, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very
butcher of a silk button, a Dualist, a Dualist: a Gentleman
of the very first house of the first and second cause: ah the
immortall Passado, the Punto reuerso, the Hay
Ben. The what?
Romeo and Juliet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Tittering fell upon all at sight of the impudent thing,
At the sight of a gift unroyal flung in the face of a king.
And the face of the king turned white and red with anger and shame
In their midst; and the heart in his body was water and then was flame;
Till of a sudden, turning, he gripped an aito hard,
A youth that stood with his omare, (8) one of the daily guard,
And spat in his ear a command, and pointed and uttered a name,
And hid in the shade of the house his impotent anger and shame.
Now Tamatea the fool was far on the homeward way,
The rising night in his face, behind him the dying day.
Rahero saw him go by, and the heart of Rahero was glad,
Ballads |
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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Thou well may'st note from what's to follow now
That more for glory do they braggart forth
Than for belief. For mark these very same:
Exiles from country, fugitives afar
From sight of men, with charges foul attaint,
Abased with every wretchedness, they yet
Live, and where'er the wretches come, they yet
Make the ancestral sacrifices there,
Butcher the black sheep, and to gods below
Offer the honours, and in bitter case
Turn much more keenly to religion.
Of The Nature of Things |
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