| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: But it will take more than imagination to carry Dorothy back
to Kansas, and I'm sure I don't know how it can be done."
17. How the Balloon Was Launched
For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz. These were sad
days for the little girl, although her friends were all quite
happy and contented. The Scarecrow told them there were wonderful
thoughts in his head; but he would not say what they were because
he knew no one could understand them but himself. When the Tin
Woodman walked about he felt his heart rattling around in his
breast; and he told Dorothy he had discovered it to be a kinder
and more tender heart than the one he had owned when he was made
The Wizard of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: taken from it, and hired out on some farm a con-
siderable distance off, and the child is placed under
the care of an old woman, too old for field labor.
For what this separation is done, I do not know,
unless it be to hinder the development of the child's
affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy
the natural affection of the mother for the child.
This is the inevitable result.
I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more
than four or five times in my life; and each of these
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: "I am resting," replied Michael Strogoff.
"Do you mean to stay all night on the bench?"
"Yes, if I feel inclined to do so," answered Michael
Strogoff, in a tone somewhat too sharp for the simple mer-
chant he wished to personate.
"Come forward, then, so I can see you," said the man.
Michael Strogoff, remembering that, above all, prudence
was requisite, instinctively drew back. "It is not neces-
sary," he replied, and calmly stepped back ten paces.
The man seemed, as Michael observed him well, to have
the look of a Bohemian, such as are met at fairs, and with
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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 Timaeus by Plato: explanation is that of Martin, who supposes that Plato is only speaking of
surfaces and solids compounded of prime numbers (i.e. of numbers not made
up of two factors, or, in other words, only measurable by unity). The
square of any such number represents a surface, the cube a solid. The
squares of any two such numbers (e.g. 2 squared, 3 squared = 4, 9), have
always a single mean proportional (e.g. 4 and 9 have the single mean 6),
whereas the cubes of primes (e.g. 3 cubed and 5 cubed) have always two mean
proportionals (e.g. 27:45:75:125). But to this explanation of Martin's it
may be objected, (1) that Plato nowhere says that his proportion is to be
limited to prime numbers; (2) that the limitation of surfaces to squares is
also not to be found in his words; nor (3) is there any evidence to show
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