Today's Stichomancy for Kobe Bryant

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson:

XXXI - TO MOTHER MARYANNE

To see the infinite pity of this place, The mangled limb, the devastated face, The innocent sufferer smiling at the rod - A fool were tempted to deny his God. He sees, he shrinks. But if he gaze again, Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain! He marks the sisters on the mournful shores; And even a fool is silent and adores.

Guest House, Kalawao, Molokai.

XXXII - IN MEMORIAM E. H.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London:

"If it weren't for your cursed obstinacy, it'd be settled anyway. All you have to do is get up and go. I'll look after things, and next year I can go out."

"Why should I go? I've no one waiting for me--"

"Your people," Pentfield broke in roughly.

"Like you have," Hutchinson went on. "A girl, I mean, and you know it."

Pentfield shrugged his shoulders gloomily. "She can wait, I guess."

"But she's been waiting two years now."

"And another won't age her beyond recognition."

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

the one grievous portion of existence. And what a glorious chance, moreover, he had to display the full strength of his soul, for when once he had decided that death was better for him than life, just as in the old days he had never harshly opposed himself to the good things of life morosely,[60] so even in face of death he showed no touch of weakness, but with gaiety welcomed death's embrace, and discharged life's debt.

[58] Lit. "dear to the gods"; "highly favoured."

[59] Cf. Hom. "Od." xii. 341, {pantes men stugeroi thanatoi deiloisi brotoisin}.

[60] {prosantes}, i.e. "he faced death boldly as he had encountered

The Apology

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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw:

work was not wasted: it is by exhausting all the hypotheses that we reach the verifiable one; and after all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.

Frank Harris's play was written long before mine. I read it in manuscript before the Shakespear Memorial National Theatre was mooted; and if there is anything except the Fitton theory (which is Tyler's property) in my play which is also in Mr Harris's it was I who annexed it from him and not he from me. It does not matter anyhow, because this play of mine is a brief trifle, and full of manifest impossibilities at that; whilst Mr Harris's play is serious both in size, intention, and quality. But there could not in the nature of