“What is your idea of God?” I asked, one day.
“Force, creative power.” A moment later, she added: “The cloud, the sunlight, that out there, the beggar on the street, myself—all a part of the great Whole—the Truth Absolute.”
“Mathematics,” I said, “is the only truth—mathematics in the larger sense, which includes art, music, science——”
But the faith of her childhood was not to be limited to equations. At luncheon, one day, we discussed the beauty of certain phrases, especially those of the King James version of the Bible. She mentioned the comfort and sheer loveliness of the words: “And underneath are the everlasting arms.”
I agreed, but pessimistically added:
“The ghastly thing about it is, that they’re not there—that this tiny pellet of a world is a part of no protecting consciousness—is drifting unheeded through space.”
“But it holds to its orbit—keeps its place in the constellation. Something sustains it.”
“A law—gravity, perhaps. Nothing that cares.”
“Oh, but there is—the arms are there—I am certain of it.”
She was interested in dreams. “I have dreamed things that happened; sometimes soon after,” she once said, and added: “I have worked out scenes in my sleep, and half-sleep, when my subconsciousness had full control. And I have many times experienced something that I am sure I had experienced before—possibly in a dream.”