Today's Stichomancy for Martin Luther King Jr.

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac:

eyes, dissolved imperceptibly away, and left them free to behold the Divine substance.

They stood in the twilight of the Coming Dawn, whose feeble rays prepared them to look upon the True Light, to hear the Living Word, and yet not die.

In this state they began to perceive the immeasurable differences which separate the things of earth from the things of Heaven.

LIFE, on the borders of which they stood, leaning upon each other, trembling and illuminated, like two children standing under shelter in presence of a conflagration, That Life offered no lodgment to the senses.

Seraphita

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

Stood out to sweep the sea, On a cruiser won from an ancient foe, As it was in the days of long ago, And as it still shall be. THE BALLAD OF THE "BOLIVAR"

Verses 1889-1896

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cromwell by William Shakespeare:

Now, master Lieutenant, when's this day of death?

LIEUTENANT. Alas, my Lord, would I might never see it. Here are the Dukes of Suffolk and of Norfolk, Winchester, Bedford, and sir Richard Ratcliffe, With others, but why they come I know not.

CROMWELL. No matter wherefore, Cromwell is prepared; For Gardiner has my state and life ensnared. Bid them come in, or you shall do them wrong, For here stands he, whom some thinks lives too long.

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 Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain:

of Goodson. He was neither born nor reared in Hadleyburg. I was afraid that if I started to operate my scheme by getting my letter laid before you, you would say to yourselves, 'Goodson is the only man among us who would give away twenty dollars to a poor devil'-- and then you might not bite at my bait. But heaven took Goodson; then I knew I was safe, and I set my trap and baited it. It may be that I shall not catch all the men to whom I mailed the pretended test-secret, but I shall catch the most of them, if I know Hadleyburg nature. [Voices. "Right--he got every last one of them."] I believe they will even steal ostensible GAMBLE-money, rather than miss, poor, tempted, and mistrained fellows. I am

The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg