“In a way, it seems to me, sometimes, as if every hope, every purpose, every controlling motive with which I started out in life, had slipped away from me, this of missionary work with the rest. All that I thought I could do or become has been rendered impossible in one way or another, and whatever capacity or force there is in me is unapplied. I can’t even be a comfortable society woman; other people won’t let me, even if I can let myself, and you know how I find it impossible to fit into conventional charities. Everywhere I seem to be superfluous, out of harmony with my environment. I thought once, I was vain enough to think, that God wanted me for some special service,—that he would give me a work for him and for his children; but I am thirty years old now, Keith, and what have I done?”
“You have been a dear wife and a faithful child,—a true Christian woman,—is that not enough?”
Anna smiled wistfully.
“It is not good for any one to simply be, and bring nothing to pass. But to-night I feel that whatever new wine life is to bring me will have to be put into new bottles. The old motives and forces have spent themselves, and the old hopes; and the forms which held them, have gone with them, for me.”
BOOK III
NIGHT
O Holiest Truth! how have I lied to thee!
I vow’d this day thy sacrifice to be;
But I am dim ere night.
Surely I made my prayer, and I did deem
That I could keep in me thy morning beam,