Today's Stichomancy for Simon Cowell

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

giving over the country to this aristocracy--given SOMETHING--"

"Which they haven't got."

"Which they haven't got--or they'd be the finest sort of people in the world."

"That something?" she inquired.

"I don't know. I've been puzzling my wits to know. They've done all sorts of things--"

"That's Lord Wrassleton," she interrupted, "whose leg was broken-- you remember?--at Spion Kop."

"It's healed very well. I like the gold lace and the white glove resting, with quite a nice awkwardness, on the sword. When I was a

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake:

Does laugh away care, Sitting under the oak, Among the old folk. They laugh at our play, And soon they all say, 'Such, such were the joys When we all--girls and boys - In our youth-time were seen On the echoing green.'

Till the little ones, weary, No more can be merry:

Songs of Innocence and Experience

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

civilization.

Who reigned over Brabant and Flanders in those days? On this point tradition is mute. Let us confess at once that this tale savors strongly of the marvelous, the mysterious, and the vague; elements which Flemish narrators have infused into a story retailed so often to gatherings of workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely in poetic merit and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every generation, handed down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night and day, and the chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in every age. Like some great building that has suffered many modifications of successive generations of architects, some sombre

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 Agesilaus by Xenophon:

Tithraustes when the satrap offered him countless gifts if he would but quit the country? "Tithraustes, with us it is deemed nobler for a ruler to enrich his army than himself; it is expected of him to wrest spoils from the enemy rather than take gifts."

[5] Or, "base covetousness."

[6] Or reading, {sun auto to gennaio} (with Breitenbach), "in obedience to pure generosity." See "Cyrop." VIII. iii. 38.

[7] I.e. Agis. See Plut. "Ages." iv.

Or again, reviewing the divers pleasures which master human beings, I defy any one to name a single one to which Agesilaus was enslaved: