"It is not nonsense," she retorted. "It is living truth. Oh, how can we be so blind! The body, Bertram—why, the body is nothing!"
"Nothing!" I cried.
"Nothing!" she answered, her face glowing. "The body is nothing; the mind is everything! It is God's great precious gift! With my mind I can control my body—my life—yes, my very destiny!—if I use God's gift of Will. It is divine."
"Letitia," I said, sternly, "those are fine words, and well enough in their time and place. I am not a physician of souls. I mend worn bodies, when I can. It is yours I am thinking of—the frail, white, half-starved flesh and blood where your soul is kept."
"Stop!" she cried. "You have no right to speak that way. You mean well, Bertram, but you are wrong. You are mistaken—terribly mistaken," she repeated, earnestly—"terribly mistaken. I am quite, quite able to care for myself. I only ask to be let alone."
She had grown hysterical. Tears were in her eyes.
"See," she said, in a calmer tone, wiping them away, "I have had perfect control till now. This is not weakness merely; it is worse: it is sin. But I shall show you. I shall show you a great truth, Bertram, if you will let me. Only have patience, that is all."
She smiled and paused in a little common near the school-house where none might hear us.
"I learned it only recently," she told me. "I cannot see how I never thought of it before: this great power mind has over matter—how just by the will which God has given us in His goodness, we may rise above these petty, earthly things which chain us down. We can rise here, Bertram—here on earth, I mean—and when we do, even though our feet be on Grassy Fordshire ground, we walk in a higher sphere. Ah, can't you see then that nothing can ever touch us?—nothing earthly, however bitter, can ever sadden us or spoil our lives! There will be no such thing as disappointment; no regret, no death—and earth will be Eden come again."
Her eyes were shining.