Today's Stichomancy for Thomas Jefferson

life, draw him to embrace our aim and way, then the thing shall be according to our purpose; for habits, firmly established in the soul, are difficult to obliterate, and yield quicker to persuasion than to violence. But if he shall continue in the Christian religion, yet shall it be some solace to time in thy distress, that thou hast not lost thy son." Thus spake Araches, and all bare witness that they welcomed his proposal. Therefore also the king agreed that this matter should thus be settled. So at day-break he called his son, and said unto him, "This is now my latest word with thee, my son. Unless thou be obedient thereto, and in this way heal my heart, know thou well, that I

1_Samuel 1: 14 And Eli said unto her: 'How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.'

1_Samuel 1: 15 And Hannah answered and said: 'No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the LORD.

1_Samuel 1: 16 Count not thy handmaid for a wicked woman: for out of the abundance of my complaint and my vexation have I spoken hitherto.'

1_Samuel 1: 17 Then Eli answered and said: 'Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thy petition that thou hast asked of Him.'

1_Samuel 1: 18 And she said: 'Let thy servant find favour in thy sight.' So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

1_Samuel 1: 19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah; and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her.

1_Samuel 1: 20 And it came to pass, when the time was come about, that Hannah conceived, and bore a son; and she called his name Samuel: 'because I have asked him of the LORD.'

1_Samuel 1: 21 And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the LORD the yearly sacrifice, and his vow.

1_Samuel 1: 22 But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband: 'Until the child be weaned, when I will bring him, that he may appear before the LORD, and there abide for ever.'

1_Samuel 1: 23 And Elkanah her husband said unto her: 'Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only the LORD establish His word.' So the woman tarried and gave her son suck, until she weaned him.

The Tanach

But what shall I say of the most famous of these men--Paracelsus? whose name you surely know. He too has been immortalised in a poem which you all ought to have read, one of Robert Browning's earliest and one of his best creations.

I think we must accept as true Mr. Browning's interpretation of Paracelsus's character. We must believe that he was at first an honest and high-minded, as he was certainly a most gifted, man; that he went forth into the world, with an intense sense of the worthlessness of the sham knowledge of the pedants and quacks of the schools; an intense belief that some higher and truer science might be discovered, by which diseases might be actually cured, and

One thinks of all the hands That are raising dingy shades In a thousand furnished rooms.

III

You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back

Prufrock/Other Observations