33 The Golden Mean Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. You would think that one who like myself has the Sun, the Lord of His Horoscope, in Libra, with Venus who rules that sign in close conjunction with him, with Saturn trine, Uranus sex tile , Mars square and Luna Quincunx to him, would wear the Golden Mean as a breastplate, flaunt it on my banneret, quarter it on my escutcheon, and grave it on the two-edged blade of my thrice trusty falchion! Just so, objects that instinct itself! "Had you been born a few hours earlier, with Aries rising, its lord Mars aggravated by the square of Sol and Venus, you would indeed have been a Wild Man of the Woods, arrogant, bigoted, domineering, incapable of seeing a second side to any question, headstrong, haughty, a seething hell-broth of hate; and this fact disables your judgment." All perfectly true. My equable nature is congenitally hostile to extreme measures, except in imagination. I cannot bear sudden violent movements. Climbing rocks, people used to say that I didn't climb them, that I oozed over them! This explains, I think, my deep-seated dislike of many passages in The Book of the Law. "0 prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing. I see thee hate the hand and the pen; but I am stronger." (AL, II: 10, II) Well, what is the upshot of all this? It answers your question about the value to be attached to this Golden Mean. 223