Today's Stichomancy for Sidney Poitier

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard:

expecting any thing different from that I received, I might have wondered over his visit. Every person's individuality was sacred to me, from the fact, perhaps, that my own individuality had never been respected by any person with whom I had any relation--not even by my own mother.

After Mr. Uxbridge went, I asked Aunt Eliza if she thought he looked mean and cunning? She laughed, and replied that she was bound to think that Mr. Lemorne's lawyer could not look otherwise.

When, on the night of the ball, I presented myself in the rose- colored moire antique for her inspection, she raised her eyebrows, but said nothing about it.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare:

comfort. [Florish. Exeunt.]

Actus Quintus

Scaena 1. (Before the Temples of Mars, Venus, and Diana.)

[Enter Thesius, Perithous, Hipolita, attendants.]

THESEUS.

Now let'em enter, and before the gods Tender their holy prayers: Let the Temples Burne bright with sacred fires, and the Altars In hallowed clouds commend their swelling Incense To those above us: Let no due be wanting; [Florish of Cornets.] They have a noble worke in hand, will honour

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

of Panopeus, or of Theodorus the Samian, or of any individual sculptor; but when the works of sculptors in general were produced, was at a loss and went to sleep and had nothing to say?

ION: No indeed; no more than the other.

SOCRATES: And if I am not mistaken, you never met with any one among flute-players or harp-players or singers to the harp or rhapsodes who was able to discourse of Olympus or Thamyras or Orpheus, or Phemius the rhapsode of Ithaca, but was at a loss when he came to speak of Ion of Ephesus, and had no notion of his merits or defects?

ION: I cannot deny what you say, Socrates. Nevertheless I am conscious in my own self, and the world agrees with me in thinking that I do speak

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 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau:

huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.

This is the whole history of "My Prisons."

I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man a

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience