Today's Stichomancy for Eddie Murphy

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells:

things as they were in those days; now I do. I bored him. I hated him. I suppose that shocks one's ideas. . . . It's true. . . . There are sentimental and traditional deferences and reverences, I know, between father and son; but that's just exactly what prevents the development of an easy friendship. Father-worshipping sons are abnormal--and they're no good. No good at all. One's got to be a better man than one's father, or what is the good of successive generations? Life is rebellion, or nothing."

He rowed a stroke and watched the swirl of water from his oar broaden and die away. At last he took up his thoughts again: "I

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

of the foe, and self-existent, Shared by all men, victorious, subduer: vouchsafe to us superior strengith in battles.

5 I have departed, still without a portion, wise God! according to thy will, the Mighty. I, feeble man, was wroth thee, O Manyu I am myself; come thou to give me vigour.

6 Come hither. I am all thine own; advancing turn thou to me,

The Rig Veda

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad:

began. The conviction that it would end disas- trously had been driven into me by all the succes- sive shocks my sense of security had received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg's baseless gossip had the power to bring about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk could put my ship ashore.

I have already explained how fatal this last would have been. For my further action, my youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for

Falk

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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville:

whispering among the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:--

"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?"

"Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices.

"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically thrown them.

"And what do ye next, men?"

Moby Dick