| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: the remotest embarrassment, but with as much naturalness as
though neither teacher nor spectator was near them.
"Have you any other games which require strength?"
we inquired.
"Man-wheel," said Chi in his monosyllabic way.
"Play it, please."
"Go and call Wei-Yuan," to one of the smaller boys.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: resuscitation of old chivalrous spirit, and the virtues of the
knightly ideal, and the old German biederkeit und tapferkeit, which
were all defiled and overlaid by French fopperies. And not in vain;
as no struggle after a noble aim, however confused or fantastic, is
ever in vain. Freemasonry was the direct parent of the Tugenbund,
and of those secret societies which freed Germany from Napoleon.
Whatever follies young members of them may have committed; whatever
Jahn and his Turnerei; whatever the iron youths, with their iron
decorations and iron boot-heels; whatever, in a word, may have been
said or done amiss, in that childishness which (as their own wisest
writers often lament) so often defaces the noble childlikeness of
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