| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: (like a ploughman) with the earth and the horses and the weather
and the things of Nature generally you can no more hurry than
Nature herself hurries.
Following this line of thought it might seem that one would
arrive at a hopeless paradox. If it be true that the less one
hurries the better the work resulting, then it might seem that
by sitting still and merely twirling one's thumbs one would
arrive at the very greatest activity and efficiency! And indeed
(if understood aright) there is a truth even in this, which--like
the other points I have mentioned--has been known and taught
long ages ago. Says that humorous old sage, Lao-tze, whom
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: devotion, which God commands that you should have for me, you have
cherished no feeling but hatred--"
"Have I not loved you?" she put in.
"No, madame."
"Then what is love?" the Countess involuntarily inquired.
"Love, my dear," replied Granville, with a sort of ironical surprise,
"you are incapable of understanding it. The cold sky of Normandy is
not that of Spain. This difference of climate is no doubt the secret
of our disaster.--To yield to our caprices, to guess them, to find
pleasure in pain, to sacrifice the world's opinion, your pride, your
religion even, and still regard these offerings as mere grains of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: and creep venturously out to the very end of that long, moss-
covered log in the water. Before these have vanished, the yellow
crow-foot and the cinquefoil will appear, followed by the star-
grass and the loose-strife and the golden St. John's-wort. Then
the unseen painter begins to mix the royal colour on his palette,
and the red of the bee-balm catches your eye. If you are lucky,
you may find, in midsummer, a slender fragrant spike of the purple-
fringed orchis, and you cannot help finding the universal self-
heal. Yellow returns in the drooping flowers of the jewel-weed,
and blue repeats itself in the trembling hare-bells, and scarlet is
glorified in the flaming robe of the cardinal-flower. Later still,
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