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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson:

CHAPTER IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE

ALL through my boyhood and youth, I was known and pointed out for the pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny version- book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it was written

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

offences, but for this which was of to-day; seeing that, while boasting alliance with Sparta, he had dictatorially enjoined the emancipation of Messene.[37] But when the man who had summoned him refused to confer the proffered generalship, Agesilaus, like one on whom a flagrant deception has been practised, began to consider the part he had to play. Meanwhile a separate division[38] of the Egyptian armies held aloof from their king. Then, the disaffection spreading, all the rest of his troops deserted him; whereat the monarch took flight and retired in exile to Sidon in Phoenicia, leaving the Egyptians, split in faction, to choose to themselves a pair of kings.[39] Thereupon Agesilaus took his decision. If he helped

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare:

You were best go in

Othel. Not I: I must be found. My Parts, my Title, and my perfect Soule Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they? Iago. By Ianus, I thinke no

Othel. The Seruants of the Dukes? And my Lieutenant? The goodnesse of the Night vpon you (Friends) What is the Newes? Cassio. The Duke do's greet you (Generall) And he requires your haste, Post-haste appearance,

Othello

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 Cratylus by Plato:

when he rises he gathers (alizoi) men together or because he is always rolling in his course (aei eilein ion) about the earth; or from aiolein, of which the meaning is the same as poikillein (to variegate), because he variegates the productions of the earth.

HERMOGENES: But what is selene (the moon)?

SOCRATES: That name is rather unfortunate for Anaxagoras.

HERMOGENES: How so?

SOCRATES: The word seems to forestall his recent discovery, that the moon receives her light from the sun.

HERMOGENES: Why do you say so?

SOCRATES: The two words selas (brightness) and phos (light) have much the