Today's Stichomancy for Christina Aguilera

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo:

another night ramble with Jimmy.

"Did a horrid old Jimmy spoil his 'itty nap'?" he gurgled to Baby. Then with a sudden exclamation of alarm, he turned toward the anxious women. "Aggie!" he cried, as he stared intently into Baby's face. "Look--his rash! It's turned IN!"

Aggie pretended to glance over Alfred's shoulder.

"Why so it has," she agreed nervously.

"What shall we do?" cried the distraught Alfred.

"It's all right now," counselled Aggie, "so long as it didn't turn in too suddenly."

"We'd better keep him warm, hadn't we?" suggested Alfred,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton:

made Glennard's situation more difficult than if he had aspired to a princess bred in the purple. Between them they asked so little-- they knew so well how to make that little do--but they understood also, and she especially did not for a moment let him forget, that without that little the future they dreamed of was impossible.

The sight of her photograph quickened Glennard's exasperation. He was sick and ashamed of the part he was playing. He had loved her now for two years, with the tranquil tenderness that gathers depth and volume as it nears fulfilment; he knew that she would wait for him--but the certitude was an added pang. There are times when the constancy of the woman one cannot marry is almost as trying as

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

which stood the tree that concealed Tarzan. They looked about for several minutes.

"Here is a good place," said the rat-faced sailor, indicating a spot beneath Tarzan's tree.

"It is as good as any," replied one of his companions. "If they catch us with the treasure aboard it will all be confiscated anyway. We might as well bury it here on the chance that some of us will escape the gallows to come back and enjoy it later."

The rat-faced one now called to the men who had remained at the boat, and they came slowly up the bank carrying

Tarzan of the Apes

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 A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac:

"It was the only mistake Maxime ever made in his life. But what would you have, no vice is absolutely perfect?" put in Bixiou.

"Maxime had still to learn what sort of a life a man may be led into by a girl of eighteen when she is minded to take a header from her honest garret into a sumptuous carriage; it is a lesson that all statesmen should take to heart. At this time, de Marsay had just been employing his friend, our friend de Trailles, in the high comedy of politics. Maxime had looked high for his conquests; he had no experience of untitled women; and at fifty years he felt that he had a right to take a bite of the so-called wild fruit, much as a sportsman will halt under a peasant's apple-tree. So the Count found a reading-