"Then Whittier is a man of faith and vision, as all poets must be if they are to be great. I like Browning for that. He sees clear. He doesn't merely hope, he believes. He not only 'faintly trusts the larger hope,' he builds on the rock. A man who has no faith is like a bird with a broken wing. Don't you think so?"
"But what do you mean by faith?" he asked, uneasily.
"Ah, now you want to puzzle me," she said, with a smile.
"Oh, no I don't," he replied, quickly. "I only want to get your meaning clearly."
"But I'm not a poet," she answered. "I'm only a girl, and I can't find the right words. But I just mean faith. Seeing the invisible, if I may say so. Realising it. Being conscious of it."
"The invisible?" he questioned.
"Yes, God, and heaven, and immortality. Believing also in goodness and humanity and the sacredness of human life."
"Do you believe that human life is a very sacred thing?"
"Why, of course I do! What a question to ask."
"Does it seem so very strange?"