Today's Stichomancy for Christian Bale
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: was changed on it. It was a world of rocks, minerals, water, plants,
animals, and men. He saw the whole world at one view, yet everything
was so magnified that he could distinguish the smallest details of
life. In the interior of every individual, of every aggregate of
individuals, of every chemical atom, he clearly perceived the
presence of the green corpuscles. But, according to the degree of
dignity of the life form, they were fragmentary or comparatively
large. In the crystal, for example, the green, imprisoned life was
so minute as to be scarcely visible; in some men it was hardly
bigger; but in other men and women it was twenty or a hundred times
greater. But, great or small, it played an important part in every
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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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Slew both his sons: and I, shall I, on whom
The secular emancipation turns
Of half this world, be swerved from right to save
A prince, a brother? a little will I yield.
Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you.
O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear
My conscience will not count me fleckless; yet--
Hear my conditions: promise (otherwise
You perish) as you came, to slip away
Today, tomorrow, soon: it shall be said,
These women were too barbarous, would not learn;
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: within gates of pearl, be comforted; but the Master, whose words are
our only authority for thinking so, never Himself inflicted disease
as a blessing, nor sent away the hungry unfed, or the wounded
unhealed.
Believe me then, the only right principle of action here, is to
consider good and evil as defined by our natural sense of both; and
to strive to promote the one, and to conquer the other, with as
hearty endeavour as if there were, indeed, no other world than this.
Above all, get quit of the absurd idea that Heaven will interfere to
correct great errors, while allowing its laws to take their course
in punishing small ones. If you prepare a dish of food carelessly,
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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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: erred in its calculations.
However, the huge body missed him by a foot,
and the creature continued on down the tunnel as
though in pursuit of the prey that had eluded him.
Carthoris, too, followed the same direction, nor was it
long before his heart was gladdened by the sight of the
moonlit exit from the long, dark passage.
Before him lay a deep hollow, entirely surrounded by
gigantic cliffs. The surface of the valley was dotted with
enormous trees, a strange sight so far from a Martian waterway.
The ground itself was clothed in brilliant scarlet sward,
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
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