5. The Gift of Silence
ALTHOUGH I write just the things I feel, my book is an effort: but I am glad of this. That I have no liking for any literary task and hate all correspondence I regard as a gift. My mother has a rarer gift: she does not talk. She speaks when she has something to say and never utters empty words. O but she is eloquent! She clothes her thoughts with simple language and stops at the right moment; it is a well-timed pause in which her face counts. Her intermittent silence is a master stroke; it gives the same sense of space that I would have in my picture. Perhaps it is beyond art, but it is all hers without an effort; arising out of her good soul it belongs to her nature.
I see her too little; her home is in a village on the coast and mine in an inland city. That I shall miss her one day is the miserable thought I cannot get rid of without seeing her. O but when I arrive my fears vanish in a moment, for she lives for me. She is dear to look upon: but when she looks at me my sense of spiritual security is greater than can ever be described. I feel the influence of her peace which brings mine back to me. Her eyes are aglow from silent thoughts of me, and I stay with no other desire than to be with her and believe in immortality—believe all her belief!