Today's Stichomancy for Paul Newman
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: jewel-strewn walk that wound beneath the stately sorapus
trees across the scarlet sward of the royal gardens of
Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth, as a dark-haired, red-
skinned warrior bent low toward her, whispering heated
words close to her ear.
"Ah, Thuvia of Ptarth," he cried, "you are cold
even before the fiery blasts of my consuming love!
No harder than your heart, nor colder is the hard,
cold ersite of this thrice happy bench which supports
your divine and fadeless form! Tell me, O Thuvia of
Ptarth, that I may still hope--that though you do not
 Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: would torment him, and would throw sticks and nuts at any beast
for fun and in the hope of being noticed. Then they would howl
and shriek senseless songs, and invite the Jungle-People to climb
up their trees and fight them, or would start furious battles over
nothing among themselves, and leave the dead monkeys where the
Jungle-People could see them. They were always just going to have
a leader, and laws and customs of their own, but they never did,
because their memories would not hold over from day to day, and so
they compromised things by making up a saying, "What the
Bandar-log think now the jungle will think later," and that
comforted them a great deal. None of the beasts could reach them,
 The Jungle Book |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Judge has not shifted his position for a long while now.
He has not stirred hand or foot, nor withdrawn his eyes so much as
a hair's-breadth from their fixed gaze towards the corner of the
room, since the footsteps of Hepzibah and Clifford creaked along
the passage, and the outer door was closed cautiously behind
their exit. He holds his watch in his left hand, but clutched in
such a manner that you cannot see the dial-plate. How profound
a fit of meditation! Or, supposing him asleep, how infantile a
quietude of conscience, and what wholesome order in the gastric
region, are betokened by slumber so entirely undisturbed with
starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dreamtalk, trumpet-blasts
 House of Seven Gables |
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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: Since then this faith can reign only in the inward man, as it is
said, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness" (Rom. x.
10); and since it alone justifies, it is evident that by no
outward work or labour can the inward man be at all justified,
made free, and saved; and that no works whatever have any
relation to him. And so, on the other hand, it is solely by
impiety and incredulity of heart that he becomes guilty and a
slave of sin, deserving condemnation, not by any outward sin or
work. Therefore the first care of every Christian ought to be to
lay aside all reliance on works, and strengthen his faith alone
more and more, and by it grow in the knowledge, not of works, but
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