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 Aeneid by Virgil:

So Salius lay extended on the plain; Euryalus springs out, the prize to gain, And leaves the crowd: applauding peals attend The victor to the goal, who vanquish'd by his friend. Next Helymus; and then Diores came, By two misfortunes made the third in fame.

But Salius enters, and, exclaiming loud For justice, deafens and disturbs the crowd; Urges his cause may in the court be heard; And pleads the prize is wrongfully conferr'd. But favor for Euryalus appears;

Aeneid

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde:

tetrarque me regarde-t-il toujours avec ses yeux de taupe sous ses paupieres tremblantes? . . . C'est etrange que le mari de ma mere me regarde comme cela. Je ne sais pas ce que cela veut dire . . . Au fait, si, je le sais.

LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Vous venez de quitter le festin, princesse?

SALOME. Comme l'air est frais ici! Enfin, ici on respire! Le- dedans il y a des Juifs de Jerusalem qui se dechirent e cause de leurs ridicules ceremonies, et des barbares qui boivent toujours et jettent leur vin sur les dalles, et des Grecs de Smyrne avec leurs yeux peints et leurs joues fardees, et leurs cheveux frises en spirales, et des Egyptiens, silencieux, subtils, avec leurs ongles

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon:

note to Theophr. "Ch." vi. p. 197, note 16.

[18] Lit. "if they mount."

[19] Like that of Pheidippides in the play; see Aristoph. "Clouds," 23 foll. And for the price of horses, ranging from 3 minas (= L12 circa) for a common horse, or 12 minas (say L50) for a good saddle or race-horse, up to the extravagant sum of 13 talents (say 3000 guineas) given for "Bucephalus," see Boeckh, "P. E. A." (Eng. tr.) p. 74. Cf. Isaeus, 55. 22; 88. 17; Lys. "de Maled." 133. 10; Aul. Gell. "Noct. Att." v. 2.

To come to the existing body of knights,[20] it would tend,[21] I think, to better rearing and more careful treatment of their horses if

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 Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber:

crowd had gone. The great room contained not more than half a dozen people. Confetti littered the floor. Here and there a napkin, crushed and bedraggled into an unrecognizable ball, lay under a table. From an overturned bottle the dregs were dripping drearily. The air was stale, stifling, poisonous.

At a little table in the center of the room Henri's three were still drinking. They were doing it in a dreadful and businesslike way. There were two men and one woman. The faces of all three were mahogany colored and expressionless. There was about them an awful sort of stillness. Something in the sight seemed to sicken Gussie Fink. It came to her that the wintry air outdoors must be

Buttered Side Down