This last illustrates how she always saw the necessities of those she loved in terms of the spirit. Napoleon is reported to have said of Jesus Christ: "He speaks from the soul as never man spoke; the soul is sufficient for him, as he is sufficient for the soul."
So she thought. And her letters contain many quotations she formed her life by:
"God himself is Truth, Charity, and Purity, and the three things he hates most are deceit, cruelty, and impurity."
"God make us all saints!"
And the characteristic ending of a letter, with her full name always signed, such as:
"Lord, grant us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting.
TERESA."
But it is impossible to convey what her ways were with the children and in the several homes that she made so full of dreaming light. She had a keen appreciation of the humorousness and quaintness of children. She was always quoting to me their adventures, their sayings. She had countless plans and schemes for work in the world, and carried out many of them in relation to woman suffrage, baby clinics, camp-fire organization for the girls of our village, and, during the war, work with all the local organizations among women that it called into being where she was living at the time. She wanted to start a home in America for French widows and orphans, though this plan was not possible,—she was deeply interested in the work for the protection of young girls under Miss Katharine Bement Davis, and only circumstances prevented her taking this up during the fall of 1918. She had several interviews with Miss Davis and showed herself to be the very person who could have helped greatly. Self-denial, sacrifice, poverty, effort were the watchwords ever recurring to her. Her instant concentration upon any book or paper that came under her eyes became a family joke. She would be lost immediately, oblivious of all surroundings. She read and thought with a lively appreciation of the many futilities in life and a desire to make her life count. She wasted no time on what did not at once attract her spirit, except of necessity. And yet she genuinely delighted in the small events of a day such as please and awe children. And the reason they loved her so was because they knew she brought the same guileless point of view to solve their bewilderment from larger experience. And yet she would write:
"I wish I knew where I stood. I was much happier when I was a rigid Catholic. I wish I could fit back into that measure. Can I ever— any more than I can fit into the mental measure of a nun?"
And again her typewriting would exclaim to me: