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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde:

Which not to know is not to live at all, And yet to know is to be held in death's most deadly thrall.

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere, Who with Adonis all night long had lain Within some shepherd's hut in Arcady, On team of silver doves and gilded wain Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

And when low down she spied the hapless pair, And heard the Oread's faint despairing cry, Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister:

"That's mere juggling!" vociferated the boy," That's merely the same kind of toy-shop brain-trick you gave us out of Greek philosophy yesterday, They said there was no such thing as motion because at every instant of time the moving body had to be somewhere, so how could it get anywhere else? Good Lord! I can make up foolishness like that myself. For instance: A moving body can never stop. Why? Why, because at every instant of time it must be going at a certain rate, so how can it ever get slower? Pooh!" He stopped. He had been gesticulating with one hand, which he now jammed wrathfully into his pocket.

The tutor must have derived great pleasure from his own smile, for he prolonged and deepened and variously modified it while his shiny little

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

I will see what you have.'

She followed me to where my wares were spread out under lee of a piece of cannon.

'Alas, mademoiselle!' said I, 'I am no very perfect craftsman. This is supposed to be a house, and you see the chimneys are awry. You may call this a box if you are very indulgent; but see where my tool slipped! Yes, I am afraid you may go from one to another, and find a flaw in everything. FAILURES FOR SALE should be on my signboard. I do not keep a shop; I keep a Humorous Museum.' I cast a smiling glance about my display, and then at her, and instantly became grave. 'Strange, is it not,' I added, 'that a

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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator:

ALCIBIADES: That is my opinion.

SOCRATES: Very good: and do you think the same about discretion and want of discretion?

ALCIBIADES: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: Do you believe that a man must be either in or out of his senses; or is there some third or intermediate condition, in which he is neither one nor the other?

ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.

SOCRATES: He must be either sane or insane?

ALCIBIADES: So I suppose.

SOCRATES: Did you not acknowledge that madness was the opposite of