| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: any other. The feeling of cold is produced by the larger particles of
moisture outside the body trying to eject the smaller ones in the body
which they compress. The struggle which arises between elements thus
unnaturally brought together causes shivering. That is hard to which the
flesh yields, and soft which yields to the flesh, and these two terms are
also relative to one another. The yielding matter is that which has the
slenderest base, whereas that which has a rectangular base is compact and
repellent. Light and heavy are wrongly explained with reference to a lower
and higher in place. For in the universe, which is a sphere, there is no
opposition of above or below, and that which is to us above would be below
to a man standing at the antipodes. The greater or less difficulty in
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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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "O, no, mother!" cried the boys. "The night is dark, and there
is no knowing what troubles and perils we may meet with."
"Alas! my dear children," answered poor Queen Telephassa;
weeping bitterly, "that is only another reason why I should go
with you. If I should lose you, too, as well as my little
Europa, what would become of me!"
"And let me go likewise!" said their playfellow Thasus, who
came running to join them.
Thasus was the son of a seafaring person in the neighborhood;
he had been brought up with the young princes, and was their
intimate friend, and loved Europa very much; so they consented
Tanglewood Tales |
