Today's Stichomancy for Britney Spears

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle:

For a time Blackbeard worked at his trade down on the Spanish Main, gathering, in the few years he was there, a very neat little fortune in the booty captured from sundry vessels; but by and by he took it into his head to try his luck along the coast of the Carolinas; so off he sailed to the northward, with quite a respectable little fleet, consisting of his own vessel and two captured sloops. From that time he was actively engaged in the making of American history in his small way.

He first appeared off the bar of Charleston Harbor, to the no small excitement of the worthy town of that ilk, and there he lay for five or six days, blockading the port, and stopping incoming

Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft:

if he would submit peaceably to an arrest, he and his wife should be bought from their owners, cost what it might. Craft replied, in effect, that he was in a measure the representative of all the other fugitives in Boston, some 200 or 300 in number; that, if he gave up, they would all be at the mercy of the slave-catchers, and must fly from the city at any sacrifice; and that, if his freedom could be bought for two cents, he would not consent to com- promise the matter in such a way. This event has stirred up the slave spirit of the country, south and

Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne:

a "deh-baschi," or simple commander of ten men. These two officers wore helmets and half coats-of-mail; little trum- pets fastened to their saddle-bows were the distinctive signs of their rank.

The pendja-baschi had been obliged to let his men rest, fatigued with a long stage. He and the second officer, smok- ing "beng," the leaf which forms the base of the "has- chisch," strolled up and down the wood, so that Michael Strogoff without being seen, could catch and understand their conversation, which was spoken in the Tartar lan- guage.

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 Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest:

That's on your hands? And my! Oh, my! I guess those eyes have had a cry, They look so red. What was it, pray? What has been happening here to-day?

An' then he drops his coat an' hat Upon a chair, an' says: "What's that? Who knocked that engine on its back An' stepped upon that piece of track?" An' then he takes me on his knee An' says: "What's this that now I see? Whatever can the matter be?

A Heap O' Livin'