Today's Stichomancy for Chris Rock

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rig Veda:

hundred camels I obtained; Ten hundred brown in hue, and other ten red in three spots: in all, ten thousand kine.

23 Ten browns that make my wealth increase, fleet steeds whose tails are long and fair, Turn with swift whirl my chariot wheel;

24 The gifts which Prthusravas gave, Kanita's son munificent. He gave a chariot wrought of gold: the prince was passing bountiful,

The Rig Veda

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke:

"And the smell of the tobacco--this is an affair of the taste. For me, I love it much; it is like a spice. When I come home at night to the camp-fire, where the boys are smoking, the smell of the pipes runs far out into the woods to salute me. It says, 'Here we are, Patrique; come in near to the fire.' The smell of the tobacco is more sweet than the smell of the fish. The pig loves it not, assuredly; but what then? I am not a pig. To me it is good, good, good. Don't you find it like that, m'sieu'?

I had to confess that in the affair of taste I sided with Patrick rather than with the pig. "Continue," I said--"continue, my boy. Miss Miller must have said more than that to reform you."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac:

chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you made to yourself--not to me--in a moment which can never fade from my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst of our privations--which we have hitherto accepted so gayly--you might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of

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 Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

mighty bodies that had struggled back and forth about the little clearing.

"This way," cried Sing presently, and started off once more into the brush, but this time in a northwesterly direction, toward camp.

In silence the three men followed the new trail, all puzzled beyond measure to account for the death of Number One at the hands of what must have been a creature of superhuman strength. What could it have been! It was impossible that any of the Malays or lascars could have done the thing, and there were no

The Monster Men