| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: In sole though feeble mastery.
III. Lessons
Unless I learn to ask no help
From any other soul but mine,
To seek no strength in waving reeds
Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;
Unless I learn to look at Grief
Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,
And take from Pleasure fearlessly
Whatever gifts will make me wise --
Unless I learn these things on earth,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: to hear Him speak with them as the true Shepherd with His
sheep. This causes me to shudder and fear that at some time He
may send a council of angels upon Germany utterly destroying
us, like Sodom and Gomorrah, because we so wantonly mock Him
with the Council.
Besides such necessary ecclesiastical affairs, there would be
also in the political estate innumerable matters of great
importance to improve. There is the disagreement between the
princes and the states; usury and avarice have burst in like a
flood, and have become lawful [are defended with a show of
right]; wantonness, lewdness, extravagance in dress, gluttony,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: his long beard, and his grandson, a little fellow of the same age
as my little Basile. My little Basile! My little Basile! He
will see the musician kiss his mother! What thoughts will pass
through his poor soul! But what does that matter to her! She
loves.
"And again it all began, the circle of the same thoughts. I
suffered so much that at last I did not know what to do with
myself, and an idea passed through my head that pleased me much,
--to get out upon the rails, throw myself under the cars, and
thus finish everything. One thing prevented me from doing so.
It was pity! It was pity for myself, evoking at the same time a
The Kreutzer Sonata |
