Today's Stichomancy for Uma Thurman
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: which to compare it. Then the children seated themselves around the great cake
of ice, and Rudolph, with the kettle on the ground beside him, tipped against
a log of wood at just the right angle, continued to be master of ceremonies,
and dipped spoonful after spoonful of the syrup, and let it trickle over the
ice in queer fantastic shapes or in little, tbin round discs like
griddle-cakes. The children ate and ate, and fortunately it seems for some
reason, to be the most harmless sweet that can be indulged in by little
people.
"Well, I've had enough," remarked Rudolph at the expiration of say a quarter
of an hour, "but isn't it wonderful that anything so delicious can just
trickle out of a tree?" his unmannerly little tongue the while making the
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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 Purse by Honore de Balzac: Hippolyte looked at the young girl. Adelaide was lighting the
Argand lamp, no doubt that she might get rid of a tallow candle
fixed in a large copper flat candlestick, and graced with a heavy
fluting of grease from its guttering. She answered with a slight
bow, carried the flat candlestick into the ante-room, came back,
and after placing the lamp on the chimney shelf, seated herself
by her mother, a little behind the painter, so as to be able to
look at him at her ease, while apparently much interested in the
burning of the lamp; the flame, checked by the damp in a dingy
chimney, sputtered as it struggled with a charred and badly-
trimmed wick. Hippolyte, seeing the large mirror that decorated
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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 Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept
it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search
In the next place, I attentively examined what I was and as I observed
that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world nor
any place in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that
I was not; and that, on the contrary, from the very circumstance that I
thought to doubt of the truth of other things, it most clearly and
certainly followed that I was; while, on the other hand, if I had only
ceased to think, although all the other objects which I had ever imagined
had been in reality existent, I would have had no reason to believe that I
existed; I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or
 Reason Discourse |
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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Owlish and blinking creatures scrambled to hands and knees;
On the grades of the sacred terrace, the driveller woke to fear,
And the hand of the ham-drooped warrior brandished a wavering spear.
And Rua folded his arms, and scorn discovered his teeth;
Above the war-crowd gibbered, and Rua stood smiling beneath.
Thick, like leaves in the autumn, faint, like April sleet,
Missiles from tremulous hands quivered around his feet;
And Taheia leaped from her place; and the priest, the ruby-eyed,
Ran to the front of the terrace, and brandished his arms, and cried:
"Hold, O fools, he brings tidings!" and "Hold, 'tis the love of my heart!"
Till lo! in front of the terrace, Rua pierced with a dart.
 Ballads |
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