| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: to buy a little house and a bit of ground--in that country one
doesn't need so much in order to live."
At this moment there was a tap upon the door, and the nurse
entered. She was a country woman, robust, rosy-cheeked, fairly
bursting with health. When she spoke one got the impression that
her voice was more than she could contain. It did not belong in
a drawing-room, but under the open sky of her country home.
"Sir," she said, addressing the doctor, "the baby is awake."
"I will go and see her," was the reply; and then to Madame
Dupont, "We will take up this conversation later on."
"Certainly," said the mother. "Will you have need of the nurse?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: seek it from Him.
Thus you can easily understand what and how much this commandment
requires, namely, that man's entire heart and all his confidence be
placed in God alone, and in no one else. For to have God, you can
easily perceive, is not to lay hold of Him with our hands or to put Him
in a bag [as money], or to lock Him in a chest [as silver vessels]. But
to apprehend Him means when the heart lays hold of Him and clings to
Him. But to cling to Him with the heart is nothing else than to trust
in Him entirely. For this reason He wishes to turn us away from
everything else that exists outside of Him, and to draw us to Himself,
namely, because He is the only eternal good. As though He would say:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: suddenly remind you of another nook that may be thousands of miles away.
One morning, behind the Quai Voltaire, an old, yellow house with rusty
balconies made me almost homesick for New Orleans."
"The Quai Voltaire!" said the Padre.
"I heard Rachel in Valerie that night," the young man went on. "Did you
know that she could sing, too. She sang several verses by an astonishing
little Jew violon-cellist that is come up over there."
The Padre gazed down at his blithe guest. "To see somebody, somebody,
once again, is very pleasant to a hermit!"
"It cannot be more pleasant than arriving at an oasis," returned Gaston.
They had delayed on the threshold to look at the beauty of the evening,
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