Today's Stichomancy for Denzel Washington

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

Over this wall aspire." So them bespake My master; and that virtuous tribe rejoin'd; " Turn, and before you there the entrance lies," Making a signal to us with bent hands. Then of them one began. "Whoe'er thou art, Who journey'st thus this way, thy visage turn, Think if me elsewhere thou hast ever seen." I tow'rds him turn'd, and with fix'd eye beheld. Comely, and fair, and gentle of aspect, He seem'd, but on one brow a gash was mark'd. When humbly I disclaim'd to have beheld

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain:

their saying she warn't simple and would be always getting out of order. Get out of order! That graveled him; he said that she couldn't any more get out of order than the solar sister.

He got worse and worse, and I never see a person take on so. It give me the cold shivers to see him, and so it did Jim. By and by he got to yelling and screaming, and then he swore the world shouldn't ever have his secret at all now, it had treated him so mean. He said he would sail his balloon around the globe just to show what he could do, and then he would sink it in

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott:

The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain.

Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, "Amy" in letters gold and blue.

Little Women

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 Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

But the Tin Woodman caught the dog in his arms and held him tight, while he called to the mice, "Come back! Come back! Toto shall not hurt you."

At this the Queen of the Mice stuck her head out from underneath a clump of grass and asked, in a timid voice, "Are you sure he will not bite us?"

"I will not let him," said the Woodman; "so do not be afraid."

One by one the mice came creeping back, and Toto did not bark again, although he tried to get out of the Woodman's arms, and would have bitten him had he not known very well he was made of tin. Finally one of the biggest mice spoke.

"Is there anything we can do," it asked, "to repay you for saving the life of our Queen?"

The Wizard of Oz