| 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: affected me in the same manner. Do you remember, how many years
ago - I would be afraid to hazard a guess - one night when I
communicated to you certain intimations of early death and
aspirations after fame? I was particularly maudlin; and my remorse
the next morning on a review of my folly has written the matter
very deeply in my mind; from yours it may easily have fled. If any
one at that moment could have shown me the Edinburgh Edition, I
suppose I should have died. It is with gratitude and wonder that I
consider 'the way in which I have been led.' Could a more
preposterous idea have occurred to us in those days when we used to
search our pockets for coppers, too often in vain, and combine
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: Times,' from a French lady, which says all I want so beautifully,
that I will print it just as it stands:-
SIR,--It is often said that one example is worth many sermons.
Shall I be judged presumptuous if I point out one, which seems to me
so striking just now, that, however painful, I cannot help dwelling
upon it?
It is the share, the sad and large share, that French society and
its recent habits of luxury, of expenses, of dress, of indulgence in
every kind of extravagant dissipation, has to lay to its own door in
its actual crisis of ruin, misery, and humiliation. If our
MENAGERES can be cited as an example to English housewives, so,
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