| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: of the temples in which there were idols found that half of their
gain was gone, and when they beat upon their drums at noon none, or
but a few, came with peacocks and with offerings of flesh as had
been the custom of the land before his coming.
Yet the more the people followed him, and the greater the number of
his disciples, the greater became his sorrow. And he knew not why
his sorrow was so great. For he spake ever about God, and out of
the fulness of that perfect knowledge of God which God had Himself
given to him.
And one evening he passed out of the eleventh city, which was a
city of Armenia, and his disciples and a great crowd of people
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: himself. They quickly cut the noose; but the noose had so hurt
his throat that for some time he could not speak; the veins of
his neck and throat are almost broken. Now he could not harm
himself, even had he wished to do so; however, he is grieved that
they have laid hands on him, and he almost burns up with rage,
for willingly would he have killed himself had no one chanced to
notice him. And now when he cannot harm himself, he cries: "Ah,
vile and shameless death! For God's sake, why hadst thou not the
power and might to kill me before my lady died? I suppose it was
because thou wouldst not deign to do what might be a kindly deed.
If thou didst spare me, it must be attributed to thy wickedness.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: leaving him alone, at Sergius's own request. The cell was a dual
cave, dug into the hillside, and in it Hilary had been buried.
In the back part was Hilary's grave, while in the front was a
niche for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and a
shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door, which
fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which, once a day, a
monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
At Carnival time, in the sixth year of Sergius's life at the
hermitage, a merry company of rich people, men and women from a
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