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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

The crowing child, the yawning dogs, And ever agile, high and low, Our Nelly going to and fro.

There shall you all silent sit, Till, when perchance the lamp is lit And the day's labour done, she takes Poor Otto down, and, warming for our sakes, Perchance beholds, alive and near, Our distant faces reappear.

MY LOVE WAS WARM

MY love was warm; for that I crossed

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott:

said, 'Weel may that be, my lord, for it was her mither's afore her, as I ken to my cost.' Eh, Marion? Ha, ha, ha! Ah! these were merry days!"

"Hout awa', auld carle," said the old dame, "to speak sic daffing to young folk. But, Jean--fie, woman, dinna ye hear the bairn greet? I'se warrant it's that dreary weid has come ower't again."

Up got mother and grandmother, and scoured away, jostling each other as they ran, into some remote corner of the tenement, where the young hero of the evening was deposited. When Caleb saw the coast fairly clear, he took an invigorating pinch of

The Bride of Lammermoor

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac:

might save your brother, and rescue a fortune of forty, perhaps sixty, thousand francs a year from the claws of that slut; but you either do not answer me, or you seem never to understand my meaning. So to-day I am obliged to write without epistolary circumlocution. I feel for the misfortune which has overtaken you, but, my dearest, I can do no more than pity you. And this is why: Hochon, at eighty-five years of age, takes four meals a day, eats a salad with hard-boiled eggs every night, and frisks about like a rabbit. I shall have spent my whole life--for he will live to write my epitaph--without ever having had twenty francs in my purse. If you will come to Issoudun and counteract the influence

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 Tanach:

Jeremiah 20: 11 But the LORD is with me as a mighty warrior; therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail; they shall be greatly ashamed, because they have not prospered, even with an everlasting confusion which shall never be forgotten.

Jeremiah 20: 12 But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, that seest the reins and the heart, let me see Thy vengeance on them; for unto Thee have I revealed my cause.

Jeremiah 20: 13 Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD; for He hath delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evil-doers.

Jeremiah 20: 14 Cursed be the day wherein I was born; the day wherein my mother bore me, let it not be blessed.

Jeremiah 20: 15 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying: 'A man-child is born unto thee'; making him very glad.

Jeremiah 20: 16 And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not; and let him hear a cry in the morning, and an alarm at noontide;

Jeremiah 20: 17 Because He slew me not from the womb; and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.

Jeremiah 20: 18 Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed in shame?

Jeremiah 21: 1 The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when king Zedekiah sent unto him Pashhur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying:

Jeremiah 21: 2 'Inquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; peradventure the LORD will deal with us according to all His wondrous works, that

The Tanach