Today's Stichomancy for David Beckham

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac:

felt persuaded that her customer was a ci-devant, and that she had been about the Court.

"Madame," she began with involuntary respect, forgetting that the title was proscribed.

But the old lady made no answer. She was staring fixedly at the shop windows as though some dreadful thing had taken shape against the panes. The pastry-cook came back at that moment, and drew the lady from her musings, by holding out a little cardboard box wrapped in blue paper.

"What is the matter, citoyenne?" he asked.

"Nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered, in a gentle voice. She

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells:

as though nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed. . . . It was tremendously still there, the sun high, and the shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still--in spite of the thudding and banging that went all about the sky.

"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know--flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple--a black thing in the bright blue water.

"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

"I think there's something there," answered the old man in his usual businesslike tone, leading the way into the store.

The stranger followed. Goldstamm lit the one light in the little place and groped about in an untidy heap of shoes of all kinds and sizes until he found several pairs that he thought might fit. These he brought out and put them in front of his customer. But in spite of his bleary eyes, the man caught sight of some patches on the uppers of one pair, and pushed them away from him.

"Give me something better than that. I can pay for it. I don't have to wear patched shoes," he grunted.

Goldstamm didn't like the looks of the man, but he felt that he

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 Euthyphro by Plato:

of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious, and the pious pious?

EUTHYPHRO: I remember.

SOCRATES: Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions, whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious.

EUTHYPHRO: I will tell you, if you like.

SOCRATES: I should very much like.

EUTHYPHRO: Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is