Look into your own heart. What are you?
Behold my hands. They are hardened by toil. I have done more than merely lift them in prayer.
Since I am alone, I have not seen a letter of print. I have no book and wish for none, and this is not in order to mortify myself, but because I wish to be perfectly alone.
She who renounces the world, and, in her loneliness, still cherishes the thought of eternity, has assumed a heavy burden.
Convent life is not without its advantages. The different voices that join in a chorale sustain each other, and when the tone at last ceases, it seems to float away on the air and vanish by degrees. But here I am quite alone. I am priest and church, organ and congregation, confessor and penitent, all in one, and my heart is often so heavy, as if I must needs have, another to help me bear the load. "Take me up and carry me, I cannot go further!" cries my soul. But then I rouse myself again, seize my scrip and my pilgrim's staff and wander on, solitary and alone; and while I wander, strength returns to me.
For the first time in a year, I saw a carriage driving up the white road that leads through the valley. Those who were sitting in it, could not know how my eyes followed them. Whither go ye? who are ye?