Today's Stichomancy for Ice Cube

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo:

won't make no difference."

"You can't bluff me," shouted Barker.

"I ain't bluffin'; I'm only TELLIN' yer," said Jim, very quietly.

"Well, you TELL her to get onto her job. If she don't she quits, that's all." He hurried into the ring.

Jim took one step to follow him, then stopped and gazed at the ground with thoughtful eyes. He, too, had seen the change in Polly. He had tried to rouse her; it was no use. She had looked at him blankly. 'If she would only complain," he said to himself. "If she would only get mad, anything, anything to wake her." But she did not complain. She went through her daily

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac:

proof used to wrap yours in. Here, read it. /Olympia, or Roman Revenge/."

"Let us see," said Lousteau, taking the sheet the doctor held out to him, and he read aloud as follows:--

240 OLYMPIA

cavern. Rinaldo, indignant at his companions' cowardice, for they had no courage but in the open field, and dared not venture into Rome, looked at them with scorn.

"Then I go alone?" said he. He

The Muse of the Department

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson:

this must every incident and character contribute; the style must have been pitched in unison with this; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller without it. Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, like an air artificially made by a discreet musician. A proposition of geometry does not compete with life; and a proposition of geometry is a fair and luminous parallel for a work

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 The Human Drift by Jack London:

Bill Hobart had a missus and three kids and at the time of his fight with me they were all starving. They did not have enough to eat. Do you understand? They did not have enough to eat. And Bill did not have enough to eat. He trained on an empty stomach, which is no way to train you'll admit. During that drought year there was little enough money in the ring, but he had failed to get any fights. He had worked at long-shoring, ditch-digging, coal-shovelling--anything, to keep the life in the missus and the kiddies. The trouble was the jobs didn't hold out. And there he was, matched to fight with me, behind in his rent, a tough old chopping-block, but weak from lack of food. If he did not win the