| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
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: measure, and had only certain faint traces of themselves, until God
fashioned them by figure and number. In this, as in every other part of
creation, I suppose God to have made things, as far as was possible, fair
and good, out of things not fair and good.
And now I will explain to you the generation of the world by a method with
which your scientific training will have made you familiar. Fire, air,
earth, and water are bodies and therefore solids, and solids are contained
in planes, and plane rectilinear figures are made up of triangles. Of
triangles there are two kinds; one having the opposite sides equal
(isosceles), the other with unequal sides (scalene). These we may fairly
assume to be the original elements of fire and the other bodies; what
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