I cannot think of that time without a certain emotion. With earnest striving, I again endeavored to build a “bright world” out of the ruins of that period of my life which had broken up around me, I again lived entirely and single-mindedly in the desire to put away the dark and the bad, and to dwell completely in the light, on my knees before my gods. Still, this “bright world” I built up was to a certain extent my own creation. It was not the action of flying back or of crawling back to mother, to a security without responsibilities. It was a new service upon which I entered, invented by myself for my own requirements, with responsibilities and discipline of self. The sex consciousness from which I suffered and before which I was in constant flight was now transmuted in this sacred fire to spirit and devotion. The grim and horrible would disappear, I should groan through no more agonizing nights, there would be no more heart-beatings in front of lewd pictures, no more listening at forbidden doors, no more lasciviousness. Instead of all this, I set up my altar, with the picture of Beatrice, and in dedicating myself to her I dedicated myself to the spirit and to the gods. That part of myself which I withdrew from the powers of darkness I brought as a sacrifice to the powers of light. Not lust was my aim, but purity; not happiness, but beauty and spirituality.