The Great Work of Your Life

by Stephen Cope

  7 “One of the few things” Annie Dillard. The Writing Life. HarperCollins: New York, 1989, p. 78.

  8 “The disunited mind” Easwaran, Gita, 2.66, p. 68.

  9 “must overcome the confusion” ibid., 2.52, p. 67.

  FIVE

  1 “Two roads diverged” Robert Frost. “The Road Not Taken.” Mountain Interval. Henry Holt: New York, 1915, p. 9.

  2 “For me the initial delight” Frost, quoted in Edward C. Lathem, Lawrence R. Thompson. The Robert Frost Reader: Poetry and Prose. Holt Paperback: New York, 2002, p. 440.

  3 “meets himself” Frost, in Lathem, Frost Reader, p. 440.

  4 “Some say the world” Robert Frost. “Fire and Ice,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1920, p. 67.

  5 “They would not find me” Robert Frost, in Lawrence Untermeyer. The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems. Holt: New York, 2002, p. xxiv.

  6 “I liked to try myself” Deirdre J. Fagan. Critical Companion to Robert Frost. Facts on File: New York, 2007, p. 5.

  7 “I wrote it all” Natalie S. Bober. A Restless Spirit: The Story of Robert Frost. Henry Holt: New York, 1998, p. 49.

  8 “something was happening” ibid., p. 42.

  9 “The most demanding” Annie Dillard. The Writing Life. HarperCollins: New York, 1989, p. 68.

  10 “To love poetry is to” Frost quoted in Jay Parini. Robert Frost: A Life. Henry Holt: New York, p. 44.

  11 “Specifically speaking, the few” K. Harris. Robert Frost: Studies of the Poetry. G. K. Hall and Co., 1980, p. 4.

  12 “a more elevated” Parini, Frost, p. 45.

  13 “Too close to” ibid., p. 46.

  14 “Perhaps when that preacher” Peter James Stanlis. Robert Frost: The Poet as Philosopher. Second Edition. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2008, p. xiii.

  15 “talk songs” Parini, Frost, p. 76.

  16 “is lifted just enough” ibid., p. 77.

  17 “sound of sense” ibid., p. 77.

  18 “The sound of” Jesse Zuba, Harold Bloom. Robert Frost: Bloom’s Modern Critical Views. Chelsea House: London, 2003, p. 208.

  19 “From all sides” Parini, Frost, p. 72.

  20 “This was a time” ibid., p. 91.

  21 “It was a necessary” ibid., p. 85.

  22 “It all started” ibid., p. 72.

  23 “No man can know” ibid., p. 115.

  24 “a life that followed” ibid., p. 113.

  25 “Until one is committed” W. A. Murray. The Scottish Himalayan Expedition. J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd: London, 1951, p. 6.

  SIX

  1 “singleness of purpose” Easwaran, Gita, 2.41, p. 65.

  2 “For those who lack” ibid., p. 65.

  3 “disunited” ibid., 2.66, p. 68.

  4 focus as an essential Stephen Covey. The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Free Press: New York, 1989, p. 9.

  5 “winners focus, losers spray” Sydney J. Harris. Winners and Losers. Argus Communications: New York, 1973, p. 2.

  6 “These old Bachelors” Jean H. Baker. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. Hill and Wang: New York, 2006, p. 62.

  7 “When I am crowned” Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Eighty Years and More: 1815–1898, Reminiscences of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Indy Publishing, 2004, p. 172.

  8 “I will show you” Charlotte Brontë in Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. The Life of Charlotte Brontë: Vol II. Smith, Elder and Co: London, 1857, p. 11.

  9 “The true woman will” Susan B. Anthony, in Lynn Sherr. Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words. Times Books: Toronto, 1995, p. 297.

  10 “I am tired of theory” Ann M. Todd. Susan B. Anthony: Activist. Chelsea House: London, 2008, p. 27.

  11 “the sisters were not” Susan B. Anthony, quoted in Kathleen Barry. Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist. First Books: Bloomington, IN, 2000, p. 71.

  12 “We are heartily sick and tired” Susan B. Anthony, in Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The Right Is Ours. Oxford University Press: USA, 2001, p. 61.

  13 “Dress loose, take a” ibid., p. 61.

  14 “I have no doubt” Susan B. Anthony, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ann D. Gordon. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Vol. 4. Rutgers University Press: Rutgers, 1997, p. 198.

  15 “it is most invigorating” Ida Husted Harper. The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Vol I. University of Michigan Library: Ann Arbor, 1898, p. 66.

  16 “Take a concrete issue” Barry, Anthony, p. 76.

  17 “With a degree of impiety” Sherr, Failure, p. 146.

  18 “The mob represents more” Anthony in Barry, Anthony, p. 83.

  19 “The important thing” ibid., p. 91.

  20 “This was the real” ibid.

  21 “Susan B. Anthony came to” ibid., p. 111.

  22 “[The Master] doesn’t glitter” Stephen Mitchell. Tao te Ching. HarperPerennial: New York, 1991, Saying 39.

  23 “While we differ widely” Geoffrey C. Ward. Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony—An Illustrated History. Knopf: New York, 1999.

  24 “She did not mince words” Barry, Anthony, p. 114.

  25 “Until women are made” Anthony in Sherr, Failure, p. 66.

  26 “Woman and her” ibid., p. 61.

  27 “failure is impossible” ibid., xiii.

  28 “Not in our day” Anthony in Barry, Anthony, p. 132.

  29 “Do you pray” Sherr, Failure, Chapter 20 “Divine Discontent.”

  30 Just three years details of scene imagined by the author, drawing on fact, see Barry, Anthony, p. xi.

  31 “When a person” Easwaran, Gita, 7.21, p. 117.

  32 “How you spend your” Dillard, Writing, p. 32.

  SEVEN

  1 “so many great works” Monet, quoted in Madeleine Hours. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. The Easton Press: Norwalk, CT, 1984, pp. 41-42.

  2 “There is only one” ibid., p. 42.

  3 “This is the saddest” ibid., p. 42.

  4 In the Light of Italy This exhibition was held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., May 29–September 2, 1996.

  5 “They are an idea of an” Robert Frost, quoted in Parini, Frost, p. 283.

  6 “the artist had captured” Corot, quoted in Patrick Noon. Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age of Romanticism. Tate Publishing: Mustang, OK, 2003, p. 201.

  7 “to pursue your” Hours, Corot, p. 30.

  8 “Do you really think” ibid., p. 30.

  9 “Do not follow others” Corot, quoted in Everard Meynell. Corot and His Friends. Methuen and Co: London, 1908, p. 97.

  10 “You could not imagine” Corot, quoted in Peter Galassi. Corot in Italy: Open-air Painting and the Classical Landscape Tradition. Yale University Press: New Haven, 1991, p. 136.

  11 “Corot is our master” ibid., p. 152.

  12 “One must be severe” ibid.

  13 “Many of Corot’s best” ibid., p. 191.

  14 “Expert Performance” K. Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness. “Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition,” American Psychologist, Vol. 49, No. 8, August 1994, pp. 725–747.

  15 “All I really want” Corot, quoted in Linello Venturi. Corot: 1796–1875. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Philadelphia, 1946, p. 20.

  16 “Ceaseless work, either” Corot, quoted in Keith Roberts. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: 1796–1875. Spring Books: London, 1965, p. 33.

  17 “I could be gay” Corot, quoted in Meynell, Corot, p. 76.

  18 “When you write” Dillard, Writing, p. 3.

  19 “All must be governed” Corot, quoted in Roberts, Corot, p. 37.

  20 “You have no idea of the things” Corot, quoted in Meynell, Corot, p. 31.


  PART IV: The Third Pillar: “Let Go of the Fruits”

  1 “You have the right to work” Easwaran, Gita, 2.47, p. 66.

  2 “You should never engage” ibid., p. 66.

  3 “Those who are motivated” ibid., 2.49, p. 66.

  4 “When you keep thinking” ibid., 2.62, p. 68.

  5 “Seek refuge in the” ibid., 2.49, p. 66.

  6 “Neither agitated by” ibid., 2.56, p. 67.

  7 “When consciousness is unified” ibid., 2.49, p. 66.

  8 “When you move” ibid., 2.62., p. 68.

  EIGHT

  1 “O, for ten years” John Keats, “Sleep and Poetry,” first published 1816. All references to Keats’s poems are from H. W. Garrod, Ed. The Poetical Works of John Keats, second Oxford edition. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1958.

  2 “The genius of poetry” Keats, in Stuart M. Sperry. Keats the Poet. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1994, p. 97.

  3 “characteristic backward toss” Aileen Ward. John Keats: The Making of a Poet. Viking Press: New York, 1967, p. 64.

  4 “a particularly dauntless expression” William Sharp. Life and Letters of Joseph Severn. University of Michigan Library: Ann Arbor, 1892, p. 20.

  5 “He was not one” Ward, Keats, p. 44.

  6 “Beauty that must die” John Keats, “Ode to Melancholy.”

  7 “Poetry comes from” Ward, Keats, p. 16.

  8 “discovered that he had” Geoffrey Treasure, ed. Who’s Who in British History: Beginnings to 1901. Routledge: London, 1998, p. 748.

  9 “the only thing worthy” Walter Jackson Bate. John Keats. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1963, p. 49.

  10 “human beings are by nature” Duncan B. Forrester, James Ian Hamilton McDonald, Gian Tellini. Encounter with God. T. T. Clark International: NY, 2004, p. 14.

  11 “I find that I cannot” Donald C. Goellnicht. The Poet-Physician: Keats and Medical Science. University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, 1984, p. 176.

  12 “O, for only ten years” John Keats, “Sleep and Poetry.”

  13 “I would sooner fail” Jack Stillinger. John Keats: Complete Poems. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1999, p. 432.

  14 “There is no greater” Peter Gordon. The Study of Education. Routledge: London, 1980, p. 214.

  15 “A clenched fist” Keats, in Ward, Keats, p. 131.

  16 “The high idea I have” John Keats. Complete Works: Letters. 1901. Nabu Press: New York, 2011, p. 38.

  17 “That which is creative” Kay R. Jamison. Touched with Fire. Free Press: New York, 1996, p. 114.

  18 “Wherein lies” John Keats, Endymion.

  19 “A fellowship with” ibid.

  20 “Several things dovetailed” Andrew Motion. Keats. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2001, p. 217.

  21 “annul the self” Keats, in Ward, Keats, p. 161.

  22 “Let us open” Keats, in Donald Goellnicht. The Poet-Physician: Keats and Medical Science. University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, 1984, p. 110.

  23 “A year or two earlier” Ward, Keats, p. 167.

  24 “To bear all naked” John Keats, “Hyperion.”

  25 “If Poetry comes not” Bate, Keats, p. 234.

  26 “I think a little” John Keats, Robert Gittings, Jon Mee. John Keats: Selected Letters. Oxford University Press: London, 2002, p. 54.

  27 “not for Fame and Laurel” Gittings, Keats, p. 224.

  28 “Being a poet” Ward, Keats, p. 224.

  29 “We often spoke” personal letter to the author from John Stevenson.

  30 “I got to see Mark” ibid.

  31 “to bear all naked truths” Keats, “Hyperion.”

  32 “the supreme experience” Gerald B. Kauvar. The Other Poetry of Keats. Associated University Press: Cranbury, New Jersey, 1969, p. 115.

  33 “Do you not see” Keats, in Motion, Keats, p. 377.

  34 “For these few weeks” Ward, Keats, p. 279.

  35 “I look upon fine” Meg Harris Williams. Inspiration in Milton and Keats. Palgrave MacMillan, London, 1982, p. 165.

  36 “Verse that comes not” Keats, in Ward, Keats, p. 320.

  37 “a poem should ride” Robert Frost, in Parini, Frost, p. 42.

  38 “I know the colour” Keats, in Ward, Keats, p. 347.

  39 “many a verse” Keats in Stuart M. Sperry. Keats the Poet. Princeton University Press; Princeton, NJ, 1993, p. 79.

  NINE

  1 “If you stay in the center” Mitchell, Tao, Saying 33.

  2 “He made it clear” Marion Woodman. Bone: A Journal of Wisdom, Strength and Healing. Penguin Putnam: New York, 2000, p. 15.

  3 “When [God] is moving you” ibid., p. 11.

  4 “I persevered” ibid., p. xi.

  5 “Destiny is recognizing” ibid., p. xvi.

  6 “These are strange days” ibid., p. 5.

  7 “In his eighties” Marion Woodman. Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman. Inner City Books: Toronto, 1993, p. 108.

  8 “The shadow is anything” Marion Woodman. Dreams: Language of the Soul. Sounds True Recordings: Boulder, CO, 1991, cassette recording no. A131.

  9 “The shadow may carry” Woodman, Dreams.

  10 “Once we know what” ibid.

  11 “I put rows of dreams” Marion Woodman with Jill Mellick. Coming Home to Myself: Daily Reflections for a Woman’s Body and Soul. Conari Press: Berkeley, 1998, p. 3.

  12 “What a relief” Woodman, Conscious Femininity, p. 51.

  13 “My dark images are” Woodman, Bone, p. 52.

  14 “I know that this death” ibid., p. 37.

  15 “In our dreams we” Marion Woodman. Rolling Away the Stone. Sounds True Recordings: Boulder, CO, 1989.

  16 “Death is inevitable” Easwaran, Gita, 2.28, p. 64.

  17 “I decided if I” Woodman, Bone, p. 66.

  18 “My body has always” ibid., p. 105.

  19 “The invitation into” This section is paraphrased from Woodman’s description of the stages of initiation in the Preface to Coming Home, p. 18.

  20 “We usually need” Woodman, Coming Home, p. 18.

  21 “We learn to live” Marion Woodman. The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation. Inner City: Toronto, 1997, p. 51.

  22 “Holding an inner” Woodman, Coming Home, p. 188.

  23 “Died into life” Woodman, Bone, p. xv.

  24 From “Sailing to Byzantium,” by William Butler Yeats, first published 1928 in The Tower. Used by permission.

  25 “awakens to the light” Easwaran, Gita, 2.69, p. 68.

  26 “Cancer has made me” Woodman, Bone, p. xvi.

  27 “Through failures” ibid., p. 296.

  28 “Oh, Marion” This section adapted and quoted from Woodman, Bone, p. 240.

  TEN

  1 “Are you too deeply” Brenda Wineapple. White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Anchor: New York, 2009, p. 4.

  2 “Before my departure” Maynard Solomon. Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination. University of California Press: Berkeley, 2004, p. 3.

  3 “Blessed is the man” A quotation from entry number “64a” from Beethoven’s Tagebuch, translated in its entirety in Maynard Solomon. Beethoven Essays. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1998, p. 268.

  4 “Beethoven turned all of his defeats” Maynard Solomon. Beethoven. Schirmer Trade Books: New York, 2001, p. 161.

  5 “saw the little Louis” Solomon. Beethoven. p. 22.

  6 “[The] Beethoven children” ibid., p. 24.

  7 “play for mortal stakes” Robert Frost. “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” from A Further Range. Henry Holt: New York, 1936.

  8 “From my earliest childhood” Leon Planti
nga. Beethoven’s Concertos. W. W. Norton: New York, 1999, p. 322.

  9 “Since I was a child” Maynard Solomon. Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination. University of California Press: Berkeley, 2003, p. 93.

  10 “There is hardly any” Solomon, Beethoven, p. 53.

  11 “I have not the slightest” Stephen Rumph. Beethoven After Napoleon. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1994, p. 97.

  12 “In whatever company” Elliot Forbes, ed. Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, Vol I., Revised. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1967, p. 185.

  13 “bested by that young” Solomon, Beethoven, p. 79.

  14 “[He] was short of stature” ibid., p. 105.

  15 “His mouth was small” ibid.

  16 “always merry, mischievous” ibid., p. 106.

  17 “Live only in your art” Solomon, Essays, Tagebuch entry 88, p. 274.

  18 “Everything that is called life” Solomon, Essays, Tagebuch entry 40, p. 258.

  19 His daily schedule is instructive. This section is drawn largely from Solomon’s descriptions of Beethoven’s interesting schedule. See Solomon, Beethoven, pp. 107–108 for more about Beethoven’s daily life.

  20 “I always have a notebook” Solomon, Beethoven, p. 107.

  21 “thematic condensation; more” ibid., p. 141.

  22 “… my ears continue to” David Wyn-Jones. The Life of Beethoven. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 1998, p. 58.

  23 “It was only my art” Forbes, Thayer, p. 305.

  24 “With joy I hasten” Michael Black. Crossing Out the Emperor. Chipmunkapublishing: London, 2011, p. 55.

  25 “I will take Fate” J. W. N. Sullivan. Beethoven: His Spiritual Development. Vintage Books: New York, 1960, p. 72.

  26 “he found that his genius” Sullivan, Beethoven, p. 73.

  27 “In the middle of winter” Albert Camus. “Return to Tipasa,” The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Random House: New York, 1961, p. 144.

  28 “Never again was” Sullivan, Beethoven, p. 77.

  29 “In the same way” ibid.