Today's Stichomancy for Ricky Martin

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

Job 14: 4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

Job 14: 5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with Thee, and Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;

Job 14: 6 Look away from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.

Job 14: 7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

Job 14: 8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;

Job 14: 9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and put forth boughs like a plant.

Job 14: 10 But man dieth, and lieth low; yea, man perisheth, and where is he?

Job 14: 11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the river is drained dry;

Job 14: 12 So man lieth down and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.

Job 14: 13 Oh that Thou wouldest hide me in the nether-world, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!--

Job 14: 14 If a man die, may he live again? All the days of my service would I wait, till my relief should come--

The Tanach

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw:

pious, serious, industrious, solvent bourgeois. No other class is infatuated enough to believe that gentlemen are born and not made by a very elaborate process of culture. Even kings are taught and coached and drilled from their earliest boyhood to play their part. But the man of family (I am convinced that Shakespear took that view of himself) will plunge into society without a lesson in table manners, into politics without a lesson in history, into the city without a lesson in business, and into the army without a lesson in honor.

It has been said, with the object of proving Shakespear a laborer, that he could hardly write his name. Why? Because he "had not the advantage of a middle-class training." Shakespear himself tells us,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain:

tude, and we can drop down and look at its number, and --"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, I never see such a lunk- head as you. Did you s'pose there's meridians of longitude on the EARTH?"

"Tom Sawyer, they're set down on the map, and you know it perfectly well, and here they are, and you can see for yourself."

"Of course they're on the map, but that's nothing; there ain't any on the GROUND."

"Tom, do you know that to be so?"

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 Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling:

"I'm not a little man, I'm Tods, and I know ALL about it. Ditta Mull, and Choga Lall, and Amir Nath, and--oh, lakhs of my friends tell me about it in the bazars when I talk to them."

"Oh, they do--do they? What do they say, Tods?"

Tods tucked his feet under his red flannel dressing-gown and said:-- "I must fink."

The Legal Member waited patiently. Then Tods, with infinite compassion:

"You don't speak my talk, do you, Councillor Sahib?"

"No; I am sorry to say I do not," said the Legal' Member.

"Very well," said Tods. "I must fink in English."