Today's Stichomancy for Tom Cruise
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: and I don't much care if I go myself with you,' and the like.
'Will you?' says I; 'well, I believe you are an honest man; if
you will, I shall be glad of it; I'll pay you in reason.' 'Why,
look ye, mistress,' says he, 'I won't be out of reason with you,
then; if I carry you to Colchester, it will be worth five shillings
for myself and my horse, for I shall hardly come back to-night.'
In short, I hired the honest man and his horse; but when we
came to a town upon the road (I do not remember the name
of it, but it stands upon a river), I pretended myself very ill,
and I could go no farther that night but if he would stay there
with me, because I was a stranger, I would pay him for himself
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: actors, musicians, and suchlike, down to that "distracted peruke-
maker with two fiery torches," who, at the storm of the Bastile,
"was for burning the saltpetres of the Arsenal, had not a woman run
screaming; had not a patriot, with some tincture of natural
philosophy, instantly struck the wind out of him, with butt of
musket on pit of stomach, overturned the barrels, and stayed the
devouring element." The distracted peruke-maker may have had his
wrongs--perhaps such a one as that of poor Triboulet the fool, in
"Le Roi s'amuse"--and his own sound reasons for blowing down the
Bastile, and the system which kept it up.
For these very ministers of luxury--then miscalled art--from the
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: and humility, and obedience to her husband, and faith in her confessor,
and domesticity, or, as learned doctors call it, the faculty
of stayathomeitiveness, and embroidery, and music, and pickling,
and preserving, and the whole complex and multiplex detail of
the noble science of dinner, as well in preparation for the table,
as in arrangement over it, and in distribution around it to knights,
and squires, and ghostly friars,--these are female virtues:
but valour--why who ever heard----?"
"She is the all in all," said brother Michael, "gentle as a ring-dove,
yet high-soaring as a falcon: humble below her deserving,
yet deserving beyond the estimate of panegyric: an exact economist
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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 Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: when I mayn't ever have any occasion to use 'em.
There was Lance Williams, he learned how to talk
Choctaw here till one come and dug his grave for him.
Now, then, what's a crusade? But I can tell you one
thing before you begin; if it's a patent-right, there's
no money in it. Bill Thompson he --"
"Patent-right!" says he. "I never see such an
idiot. Why, a crusade is a kind of war."
I thought he must be losing his mind. But no, he
was in real earnest, and went right on, perfectly
ca'm.
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