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Strauch, Dora; Brockmann, Walter / Satan came to Eden
(1936)
Chapter I: The end of one life, pp. 1-17
Page 11
The End of One Life II what earthly deeds we achieved, but what we made of our own selves." One day I hesitantly confessed to Dr. Ritter that I could never have any children, but he consoled me, saying, "Children are an extension of the personal into the world matter, a postponement of personal redemption and of the fulfillment of the ultimate duty laid upon every person to perfect himself." Fatherhood, he said, was one of the ordinary human joys which he had long since renounced. I recognized now that the Ego, always dominant in woman, must be overcome by me in myself, still bound by many ties to earth. I was to find myself in self-abnegation. I prayed that my body might become the vessel of the beautiful and divine so that my life be filled and fulfilled. How few, if any, of the millions strug- gling along the world's ways, have ever had or sought the oppor- tunity to find themselves. The leisure after the day's work is not devoted to this higher learning. Time that the wise #vould spend in meditating on these things is spent at movies, cafes and theaters, created as if by malicious design to hinder contemplation. Frederick and I rejected all these things and were determined to fight our way to inner freedom in spite of all the hindrances of civilized life. His logical and abstract way of thinking was a revelation to me. It opened up a new world, a world which even this daring and adventurous thinker had not yet explored, and I realized from the start that unless I was prepared to impose upon myself the most rigorous self-restraint and discipline, I never could expect to keep pace with him. I felt in him the triumph of the masculine and was determined, in order not to fall by the wayside, to subjugate the eternal feminine in me as far as possible. Not that the normal relationship between man and woman should be quite rejected. It must, however, not dominate the situation. "I cannot have a love-sick woman full of romantic notions trail- ing after me into the wilderness. . . ." Dr. Ritter used to say. This was in the early days, but gradually he saw that I was ready to take whatever the great plan brought with it, and after a while this objection disappeared and he became reconciled to the idea of my accompanying him. I often think, indeed I am quite sure, that this experiment, with the idea of which he had been dallying off
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