Have just been out in the garden planting little seeds that will grow big and strong so that they can be put into shining pots and cooked for the Stranger's dinner—tiny carrot seeds. They had to be rolled over and over between the fingers before they could decide one by one to fall into the rich warm earth. Planting little seeds at sunset! Does it not awaken in you something of the old days we spent so close to the soil? Radiant dusk? But you have to look back to see how sweet the purity and simplicity of the peasant's life. The peasants themselves do not know. To-day holy hot sunlight and lilac bloom—could there be a more wonderful day than that? And Chapel so full of power, then a planting of little seeds at sunset. Ah, Mary! I am happy as I dare to be in a world that is choking in its own blood. At least we are open and ready for any work if it is ours. We hold up our arms asking for hard and painful tasks that will fill us with that singing conquest that cries aloud: "None have more pain to hold than we!" ... We are all working toward you, toward that height. You will be waiting for us with open arms out there. We all send white love to you—our waiting Mary!
Peasants and mill-girls, or the dim lacking faces of the passers-by—always these join to the Little Girl's quests and dreams of the spirit. Two brief additional cuttings suggestive of her idea of Romance follow, from the twelve-year period:
The first great vision of the quest must come to a soul over the plough, in the peasant's body—dissatisfaction with self and surroundings. This is the beginning of everything. The person who is content with small things, small thoughts, does not move. His soul stays asleep. With awakening comes hate and anger and much simple blackness. It is just that, which gives him the power to stand up against the ways he has known so long—to stand up for himself—to push the new vague dreams through to life and light. It is all blind at first, but great and brave, too. The call that would come to the peasant would be to the Town—to many men and things, for that is just the opposite from his life. In a simple way he would go to the depths of the worst he could find—to the extreme.
The thing that is holding so many from their own, is contentedness, satisfaction. The longer one holds to this, the lower he sinks, until he is buried in himself.... The questers who have come up into the light, are brilliant, flashing, beautiful. But the souls of the "white torrent" are rushing on through the dark night, a night that grows darker and darker as it approaches the day. Their faces are tragic, drawn, expectant; there is a sort of red-dark cloud that they are tearing themselves through.... Only the poor fat ones! they fill you with sadness because you can not help them and they are not trying to help themselves. They seem to sink almost visibly, farther and farther down, as they laugh and smile, and nod their heads to each other (only to each other). The light around them is really not a light at all—just a colour, a cold, grey-black colour that looks almost dead. You could laugh if they had anything to do with you, any power over you—you could laugh at them and tell them that you were laughing, but their helplessness hurts you. They can only hurt themselves. There is absolutely no humour in their faces nor in any of their movements. They are all sober; they can not laugh inside. Always it is the sign of flight from God to lose the sense of humour. For humour is a great inner glowing—the power to overlook, to forget the meaner things in people and in life. It is a power to forget one's self also, to laugh at oneself.... I see the New Race as a line of Classic Ruffians—a Troop of Mystic Warriors ... singing their glorious song of stern compassion and deep love, filling all with their questing for power and beauty.... I hear their laughter."
She paints the City Street a bit darker in this:
Dim faces, full of blank suffering and of living death. Dark and noisy streets, crowded stores of trade.... Men—little men, following their women, carrying the babies. The mother part of me goes out to those little men. Down the ages, mothering imprints its pain upon our souls. And their women now—with faces wanting, always wanting, everything in them wanting! I have been carried away by these dim hungry faces. I have seen them staring at me with blank surprise. But then they hurry on, and the forgotten babies cry. Hushing them, the women pass—little men following.