| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: Meanness! and was abashed at himself. - Yours most sincerely,
R. L S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[NEW YORK: END OF SEPTEMBER 1887.]
MY DEAR S. C., - Your delightful letter has just come, and finds me
in a New York hotel, waiting the arrival of a sculptor (St.
Gaudens) who is making a medallion of yours truly and who is (to
boot) one of the handsomest and nicest fellows I have seen. I
caught a cold on the Banks; fog is not for me; nearly died of
interviewers and visitors, during twenty-four hours in New York;
cut for Newport with Lloyd and Valentine, a journey like fairy-land
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: Sherborne on Dorchester, Wimborne on both; the waggons will
be fired on as they follow the highway, the trains wrecked on
the lines, the ploughman will go armed into the field of
tillage; and if we have not a return of ballad literature,
the local press at least will celebrate in a high vein the
victory of Cerne Abbas or the reverse of Toller Porcorum. At
least this will not be dull; when I was younger, I could have
welcomed such a world with relief; but it is the New-Old with
a vengeance, and irresistibly suggests the growth of military
powers and the foundation of new empires.
COLLEGE PAPERS
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