Today's Stichomancy for Jessica Biel

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass:

truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slav- ery, and a powerful vindication of human rights. The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on an- other even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers,

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell:

substance of stereoscopic sight. Our airiest fancies seem solid facts for their reality to her, and gilded by lovelight, they glitter and sparkle like a true palace of the East. For once all is possible; nothing lies beyond our reach. And as we talk, and she listens, we two seem to be floating off into an empyrean of our own like the summer clouds above our heads, as they sail dreamily on into the far-away depths of the unfathomable sky.

It would be more than mortal not to believe in ourselves when another believes so absolutely in us. Our most secret thoughts are no longer things to be ashamed of, for she has sanctioned them. Whatever doubt may have shadowed us as to our own imaginings

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister:

termed a black eye. But I was once inclined to applaud his struggle for knowledge, until I studied him close and perceived that his love was not for the education he was getting. Bertie and Billy loved play for play's own sake, and in play forgot themselves, like the wholesome young creatures that they were. Oscar had one love only: through all his days whatever he might forget, he would remember himself; through all his days he would make knowledge show that self off. Thank heaven, all the poor students in Harvard College were not Oscars! I loved some of them as much as I loved Bertie and Billy. So there is no black eye about it. Pity Oscar, if you like; but don't be so mushy as to admire him as he stepped along in the night, holding his notes, full of his knowledge,

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 Gorgias by Plato:

pleased, Oh, no!

SOCRATES: Justly or unjustly, do you mean?

POLUS: In either case is he not equally to be envied?

SOCRATES: Forbear, Polus!

POLUS: Why 'forbear'?

SOCRATES: Because you ought not to envy wretches who are not to be envied, but only to pity them.

POLUS: And are those of whom I spoke wretches?

SOCRATES: Yes, certainly they are.

POLUS: And so you think that he who slays any one whom he pleases, and justly slays him, is pitiable and wretched?