| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: is odd, and in the same way two and four, and the other series of alternate
numbers, has every number even, without being evenness. Do you agree?
Of course.
Then now mark the point at which I am aiming:--not only do essential
opposites exclude one another, but also concrete things, which, although
not in themselves opposed, contain opposites; these, I say, likewise reject
the idea which is opposed to that which is contained in them, and when it
approaches them they either perish or withdraw. For example; Will not the
number three endure annihilation or anything sooner than be converted into
an even number, while remaining three?
Very true, said Cebes.
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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 Mother by Owen Wister: butter; but the bread was to be mine and bread was still a long way off,
according to New York standards. These things I thought over while she
was in Florida; yet when once I should I find myself with her again, I
began to fear that I could not hold myself from--but these are
circumstances which universal knowledge renders it needless to mention,
and I will pass to the second perturbation."
"A sum of money was suddenly left me. Then for the first time I understood
why I had during my boyhood been so periodically sent to see a cross old
brother of my mother's, who lived near Cold Spring on the Hudson, and
whom we called Uncle Snaggletooth when no one could hear us. Uncle
Godfrey (for I have called him by his right name ever since) died and left
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