Today's Stichomancy for David Beckham

he had spared her that she could have drowned quietly, welcoming the dark flood as it submerged her. But now the flood was shot through with glory, and it was harder to drown at sunrise than in darkness. Gerty hid her face from the light, but it pierced to the crannies of her soul. She had been so contented, life had seemed so simple and sufficient--why had he come to trouble her with new hopes? And Lily--Lily, her best friend! Woman-like, she accused the woman. Perhaps, had it not been for Lily, her fond imagining might have become truth. Selden had always liked her--had understood and sympathized with the modest independence of her life. He, who had the reputation of weighing all things in

glimpses of low roofs and the fronts of tiny cottages, withdrawn from full view among the saplings and underbrush. At the other side of the clearing, fully fourscore tents were pitched, some gray and mended, others dazzlingly white in their newness. The more remote of these tents fell into an orderly arrangement of semi-circular form, facing that part of the engirdling woods where the trees were largest, and their canopy of overhanging foliage was lifted highest from the ground. Inside this half-ring of tents were many rounded rows of benches, which followed in narrowing lines the idea of an amphitheatre cut in two.

The Damnation of Theron Ware

It turns him back from honoured enterprise, As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy.

That thou mayst free thee from this apprehension, I'll tell thee why I came, and what I heard At the first moment when I grieved for thee.

Among those was I who are in suspense, And a fair, saintly Lady called to me In such wise, I besought her to command me.

Her eyes where shining brighter than the Star; And she began to say, gentle and low, With voice angelical, in her own language:

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

"Laddy, I--I'm afraid Thorne's done for," whispered Gale. "He's lying over there in that crack. I can see part of him. He doesn't move."

"I was wonderin' if I'd have to tell you that. Dick, he went down hard hit, fallin', you know, limp an' soggy. It was a moral cinch one of us would get it in this fight; but God! I'm sorry Thorne had to be the man."

"Laddy, maybe he's not dead," replied Gale. He called aloud to his friend. There was no answer.

Ladd got up, and, after peering keenly at the height of lava, he strode swiftly across the space. It was only a dozen steps to the

Desert Gold