| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: The tract most barb'rous of Sardinia's isle,
Hath dames more chaste and modester by far
Than that wherein I left her. O sweet brother!
What wouldst thou have me say? A time to come
Stands full within my view, to which this hour
Shall not be counted of an ancient date,
When from the pulpit shall be loudly warn'd
Th' unblushing dames of Florence, lest they bare
Unkerchief'd bosoms to the common gaze.
What savage women hath the world e'er seen,
What Saracens, for whom there needed scourge
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: Spiritual world is fixed in its essence and unfixed in its
faculties. The Divine world is necessarily a Material worship, a
Spiritual worship, and a Divine worship: three forms expressed in
action, speech, and prayer, or, in other words, in deed,
apprehension, and love. Instinct demands deed; Abstraction is
concerned with Ideas; Specialism sees the end, it aspires to God
with presentiment or contemplation.
XXI
Hence, perhaps, some day the converse of /Et Verbum caro factum
est/ will become the epitome of a new Gospel, which will proclaim
that The Flesh shall be made the Word and become the Utterance of
Louis Lambert |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: might have spared you much or all of this."
"No, no! your manner might be only the ease which your engagement
to another man would give. I left you in this belief; and yet,
I was determined to see you again. My spirits rallied with the morning,
and I felt that I had still a motive for remaining here."
At last Anne was at home again, and happier than any one in that house
could have conceived. All the surprise and suspense, and every other
painful part of the morning dissipated by this conversation,
she re-entered the house so happy as to be obliged to find an alloy
in some momentary apprehensions of its being impossible to last.
An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective
Persuasion |
