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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke:

all that you want. But be sure that your match is a good one. It is better to see to this before you go into the brush. Your comfort, even your life, may depend on it.

"AVEC CES ALLUMETTES-LA," said my guide at LAC ST. JEAN one day, as he vainly tried to light his pipe with a box of parlour matches from the hotel,--AVEC CES GNOGNOTTES D’ALLUMETTES ON POURRA MOURIR AU BOIS!"

In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match of our grandfathers-- the match with a brown head and a stout stick and a dreadful smell-- is the best. But if you have only one, do not trust even that to light your fire directly. Use it first to touch off a roll of

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne:

island of these wretches. Pencroft's presentiments were not mistaken, when he wished to hunt them as wild beasts. That would have spared us all these misfortunes!"

"Yes," answered the reporter, "but now we have the right to be merciless!"

"At any rate," said the engineer, "we are obliged to wait some time, and to remain at the corral until we can carry Herbert without danger to Granite House."

"But Neb?" asked the reporter.

"Neb is in safety."

"But if, uneasy at our absence, he would venture to come?"

The Mysterious Island

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

made so many promises, that I consented to communicate to her the confidences of the old soldier. Next day she received the following episode of an epic which one might call "The French in Egypt."

During the expedition in Upper Egypt under General Desaix, a Provencal soldier fell into the hands of the Maugrabins, and was taken by these Arabs into the deserts beyond the falls of the Nile.

In order to place a sufficient distance between themselves and the French army, the Maugrabins made forced marches, and only halted when night was upon them. They camped round a well overshadowed by palm trees under which they had previously concealed a store of provisions. Not surmising that the notion of flight would occur to their prisoner,

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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

murder like any other, and the man who had committed it knew that he was under the ban of the law, that it was only a chance that the arm of justice had not yet reached out for him. And now this arm had reached out for him, although it was no longer necessary. For Herbert Thorne was not the man to allow another to suffer in his stead.

As soon as he knew that another had been arrested and was under suspicion of the murder, he knew that there was nothing more for him but open confession. But he wished to avoid a scandal even now. If he died by his own hand, then the first cause of all this trouble, his brother-in-law's rascality, could still be hidden.