| 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: out of the eighteen provinces it appears that the Chinese
nursery is rich in Mother Goose. As a companion to
the "Chinese Mother Goose," this book seeks to show
that the same sunlight fills the homes of both East and
West. If it also leads their far-away mates to look upon
the Chinese Boy and Girl as real little folk, human like
themselves, and thus think more kindly of them, its mission
will have been accomplished.
CONTENTS
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: conditions among night-working mothers in thirty-nine textile mills in
Rhode Island, based on exhaustive studies, Mrs. Florence Kelley
describes the ``normal'' life of these women:
``When the worker, cruelly tired from ten hours' work, comes home in
the early morning, she usually scrambles together breakfast for the
family. Eating little or nothing herself, and that hastily, she
tumbles into bed--not the immaculate bed in an airy bed-room with dark
shades, but one still warm from its night occupants, in a stuffy
little bed-room, darkened imperfectly if at all. After sleeping
exhaustedly for an hour perhaps she bestirs herself to get the
children off to school, or care for insistent little ones, too young
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: thither, and thinking how fine it all was. He had no more thought
that the king and the princess were talking about him than the
man in the moon.
Suddenly some one clapped him upon the shoulder.
Beppo turned around.
There stood a great tall man dressed all in black.
"You must come with me," said he.
"What do you want with me?" said Beppo.
"That you shall see for yourself," said the man.
"Very well," said Beppo; "I'd as lief go along with you as
anywhere else."
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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 Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: dawn, for the cold was so sharp at this great height that we, who
had travelled from the hot land, could sleep very little, and also
Guatemoc desired if it were possible to reach the city that night.
When we had gone a few hundred paces the path came to the crest of
the mountain range, and I halted suddenly in wonder and admiration.
Below me lay a vast bowl of land and water, of which, however, I
could see nothing, for the shadows of the night still filled it.
But before me, piercing the very clouds, towered the crests of two
snow-clad mountains, and on these the light of the unrisen sun
played, already changing their whiteness to the stain of blood.
Popo, or the Hill that Smokes, is the name of the one, and Ixtac,
Montezuma's Daughter |
