the latter towards the former, nearly in sextiles with both: they were also removing from quadratures with Mars, to which Mercury was closely approaching: the moon drew near the trine of the same planet, close to the Bull's Eye, even in latitude. The 25th degree of Gemini was rising, and the 22d of Aquarius culminating. That there was this triple configuration on that day—namely, the sextile of Saturn and the Sun, the sextile of Mars and Jupiter, the quadrature of Mercury and Mars, is proved by the change of weather; for, after a frost of some days, that very day became warmer, there was a thaw and a fall of rain.[192] "I do not wish this single instance to be taken as a defence and proof of all the aphorisms of astrologers, nor do I attribute to the heavens the government of human affairs: what a vast interval still separates these philosophical observations from that folly or madness as it should rather be called. For, following up this example, I knew a lady[193], born under nearly the same aspects, whose disposition, indeed, was exceedingly restless, but who not only makes no progress in literature (that is not strange in a woman), but troubles her whole family, and is the cause to herself of deplorable misery. What, in my case, assisted the aspects was—firstly, the fancy of my mother when pregnant with me, a great admirer of her mother-in-law, my grandmother, who had some knowledge of medicine, my grandfather's profession; a second cause is, that I was born a male, and not a female, for astrologers have sought in vain to distinguish sexes in the sky; thirdly, I derive from my mother a habit of body, more fit for study than other kinds of life; fourthly, my parents' fortune was not large, and there was no landed property to which I might succeed and become attached; fifthly, there were the schools, and the liberality of the magistracy towards such boys as were apt for learning. But now if I am to speak of the result of my studies, what I pray can I find in the sky, even remotely alluding to it. The learned confess that several not despicable branches of philosophy have been newly extricated or amended or brought to perfection by me: but here my constellations were, not Mercury from the east, in the angle of the seventh, and in quadratures with Mars, but Copernicus, but Tycho Brahe, without whose books of observations everything now set by me in the clearest light must have remained buried in darkness; not Saturn predominating Mercury, but my Lords the Emperors Rodolph and Matthias; not Capricorn, the house of Saturn, but Upper Austria, the home of the Emperor, and the ready and unexampled bounty of his nobles to my petition. Here is that corner, not the western one of the horoscope, but on the Earth, whither, by permission of my imperial master, I have betaken myself from a too uneasy court; and whence, during these years of my life, which now tends towards its setting, emanate these Harmonies, and the other matters on which I am engaged.