Today's Stichomancy for Peter O'Toole

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon:

shadows of these mountain gorges which had depressed her? And yet his utter indifference to the glories of beautiful waters, his blindness at noon before the most wonderful panorama of mountains and skies on which she had ever gazed, contradicted the theory of the poetic soul. A poet must see beauty where she had seen it--and a thousand wonders her eyes had not found.

His elation was uncanny. What could it mean?

He was driving now with a skill that was remarkable, a curious smile playing about his drooping, Oriental eyelids. A wave of fierce resentment swept

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac:

through the open space, the praying men filled with conviction and united by one and the same sentiment, the bare cross, the wild and barren temple, the dawning day, gave the primitive character of the earlier times of Christianity to the scene. Mademoiselle de Verneuil was struck with admiration. This mass said in the depths of the woods, this worship driven back by persecution to its sources, the poesy of ancient times revived in the midst of this weird and romantic nature, these armed and unarmed Chouans, cruel and praying, men yet children, all these things resembled nothing that she had ever seen or yet imagined. She remembered admiring in her childhood the pomps of the Roman church so pleasing to the senses; but she knew nothing of God

The Chouans

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Cruise of the Jasper B. by Don Marquis:

"Idiot that I am," cried Cleggett, "not to have covered that hole!" His chagrin was touching to behold.

"There, there, Cleggett," said Wilton Barnstable kindly, "do not reproach yourself too bitterly."

"But to let him escape when I had him----" Cleggett finished the sentence with a groan.

But Wilton Barnstable was thinking.

"Please have some lights brought down here if you will, Captain," he said to Abernethy, "and ask Mr. Bard and Mr. Ward to come."

In a few minutes the interior of the hold was illuminated with lanterns; it was as bright as day. But the detectives did not

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 Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre:

slack net-work, through which the outcomers wriggle: weak little orange-yellow beasties, with a triangular black patch upon their sterns. One morning is long enough for the whole family to make its appearance.

By degrees, the emancipated youngsters climb the nearest twigs, clamber to the top, and spread a few threads. Soon, they gather in a compact, ball-shaped cluster, the size of a walnut. They remain motionless. With their heads plunged into the heap and their sterns projecting, they doze gently, mellowing under the kisses of the sun. Rich in the possession of a thread in their belly as their sole inheritance, they prepare to disperse over the wide

The Life of the Spider