Today's Stichomancy for Kurt Cobain

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche:

have it!"--that only do I call redemption!

Will--so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught you, my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself is still a prisoner.

Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth the emancipator in chains?

"It was": thus is the Will's teeth-gnashing and lonesomest tribulation called. Impotent towards what hath been done--it is a malicious spectator of all that is past.

Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time's desire--that is the Will's lonesomest tribulation.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil:

Nor Ganges fair, and Hermus thick with gold, Can match the praise of Italy; nor Ind, Nor Bactria, nor Panchaia, one wide tract Of incense-teeming sand. Here never bulls With nostrils snorting fire upturned the sod Sown with the monstrous dragon's teeth, nor crop Of warriors bristled thick with lance and helm; But heavy harvests and the Massic juice Of Bacchus fill its borders, overspread With fruitful flocks and olives. Hence arose The war-horse stepping proudly o'er the plain;

Georgics

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon:

Avoidance: secret outlet Battle: battalion Bestow: settle in life Blanch: flatter, evade Brave: boastful Bravery: boast, ostentation Broke: deal in brokerage Broken: shine by comparison Broken music: part music Cabinet: secret Calendar: weather forecast

Essays of Francis Bacon

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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac:

eighteenth-century style; that is to say, a tall cane at the end of which opened a green sun-shade with a green fringe. When she walked about the terrace a stranger on the high-road, seeing her from afar, might have thought her one of Watteau's dames.

In her salon, hung with red damask, with curtains of the same lined with silk, a fire on the hearth, a mantel-shelf adorned with bibelots of the good time of Louis XV., and bearing candelabra in the form of lilies upheld by Cupids--in this salon, filled with furniture in gilded wood of the "pied de biche" pattern, it is not impossible to understand why the people of Soulanges called the mistress of the house, "The beautiful Madame Soulanges." The mansion had actually