tag for guidance. These selme letters con- 

 tain some bits of wise criticism and an 

 already defined pliilofeophy wortli noting. 

 As of suffrage: "Equality lias never 

 seemed to me to mean twtnshlp." "Cer- 

 tainly all experience is a possession, and I 

 stiall have much to say when I am able 

 to say it." "I cannot malte up real life 

 out of my head, and I never mean to. 

 We go hand in hand, wayfarers two, and 



■ there is no way of escaping that knowledge, 



' I believe, for one who seeks." 



Lilce Stevenson, j! P. showed her Puri- 

 tan strain in the desire to help others with 

 the written Word. Out of her diary and 

 letters might well be compiled a series of 

 condensed and pointed little sermons, Stev- 

 ensonian in style and pithiness, apt for the 

 artist, the idealist, indeed for any human 

 groper. "If we could only, every night, 

 put off with our clothes the mundane obli- 

 gations of anxiety and pain, and have our 

 minds vacant of everything but the world- 

 fllllng breath of life ; if wo could without 



' mtrica,te thinking dare to rest our cheek 

 against some universal consciousnos.s that 

 I have just tiiought o£ a single name for, 

 the will of God. T%e will of God is that 

 ail things shall be full of Love and Truth: 

 we ourselves so full of love and truth as 

 to become a part of the very fabric of 

 divinity." (Letter to Mary Mason). 



"You and I know that all adventures 

 belong to that one Adventure. So Pain 

 can't have me, until I'm caught hy the 



■collar; and Pain shan't have me, the mo- 

 rnent I can break free again. But I will 

 ^lave all the treasures out of her oaves and 

 towers. And there will be another Terror 

 knocked out of the way." (Letter to Anna 

 Branch.) 



"Fill your pockets with the candor of 

 high heaven, so to speak, and the briar- 

 rose defences— for friends — that never 

 hurt : and the omnipresence of fire and the 

 recompense of violets and the vision of 

 the evening star and the momentary con- 

 tentment of a sparrow in a mud-puddle." 

 (Letter to Margarethe Muller. ) 



The pages teem with shrewd bits of wis- 

 dom which have tlae terse bite of proverbs, 

 as, for instance : "It is odd how one learns 

 the hostility of solitude and the friendli- 

 ness, of the world — the hostility of the world 

 and the friendliness of solitude— and learns 

 and relearns. and is hurt by the one and 

 healed by the other over and over again." 

 "No joy possible to mind awake that has 

 not something creative about It." "Level 

 wings — level wings — keep your wings 

 level." "Amen, and God be with ua. No ; 

 I'll amend that lyish. Amen ; and may 

 never be so blind we cannot pei'ceive God 

 with us." "I saw that this came (desola- 

 tion) of laying up your treasure in your 

 art always, and forgetting that the Man 

 Himself is the ' Treasury of all he pos- 

 sesses." "Nothing is a treasure tliat can'1 

 be shared." "Have we not heard very, very 

 often of the things that are 'too beautiful 

 to be true'? But I never heard anyone 

 speak of the things that are not yet true 

 enough to be beautiful." 



The whole book is a battle-cry to th< 

 artist, full of illuminating comment on th 

 poet's outlook, ideal, and source of inspira- 

 tion. "Prayers to the Lord to bless my 

 work a,nd my tongue and my heart 

 soul, and to make me justify ray existence 

 with things of help and beauty." "In the 

 fundamental crises of life men and motives 

 crystallize into the ritual of' rhythm, which 

 ii the most democratic beauty there is 



Through the ages one can trace her grow- 

 ing understanding of wild nature, which, 

 like wholesome exercise, had been omitted 

 from her early eduaction, to her physical 

 detriment and danger. Her work wa 

 steadily enriched by happy experience oi 

 sea and shore and mountain, wiiereof we ge 

 stimulating glimpses through her letters 

 And her life was widening constantly its 

 horizons of friendship and social contact. 

 From the rather self-conscious devotee of 

 Beauty she became the passionate Sister 

 of the World, eager to share her treasures 

 with everyone — the spirit one finds artisti- 

 ciilly concrete in "The Singing Man," "Har- 

 vest Moon," "The Piper" and "The Wolf of 

 Gubhio." 



The most touching and triumphant note 

 of this unique self-revelation, vhowev 

 seems to me the quite simple and in 

 tinguishable conviction that she was 

 "Child of Light,'- sustained by an unfail- 

 ing source of power. In her earlier diary 

 she wrote "God knows with what wistful- 

 ness and secret Joy I sometimes thinlc I 

 am a Aild of Light by birth. We all are 

 but I, have more to answer tor. becaus( 

 t feel it on my head, somehow. Ah, child, 

 I child, find yourself. Don't oompromis( 

 Don't do things by halves. Do ; dare ; 

 suffer; sliine." That may well have been 

 her life-motto. Mr. Scudder recognized 



this with a different accent, saying in a 

 letter to her, soon after their first meeting, 

 "Now and then one is born with a poetic 

 nature and is true to it by an unforced 

 impulse; then it may be everything comes 

 to life through some subtle transfusion of 

 this spirit, and the voice stands apart with 

 a certain singularity. I think this is so 

 with you." Out of her happiness she 

 wrote in her diary (Oct. 1907) "Blessed be 

 God. And blessed be this House ; and all ' 

 that we shall ever do, or say, or sing, with- 

 in it or without. For I can do nothing 

 else but sing a new song all day long 

 unto His hearing, not knowing what to 

 make of so much Light." Later still comes 

 this paean, "Oh me, it frightens me, the 

 dazzling Joy and delight I liave, so often 

 and often, these hours and days and year^ 

 in the Land of Promise." "And at the 

 very end, in one of her last letters, siie 

 ccmld say, "And now I've written all I 

 can ; but the Inside Wonder I shall have 

 to tell you when we meet- For it is still 

 With me; and it says: "Not one word of 

 discouragement. It is All happy, and you 

 will understand in a very short while. Do 

 not trust your own little sense of time ; , 

 which in the end is always wrong , 

 troublesome. Trust the sense you wake up 

 with." 



And .so one shares again the moods of 

 this remarkable creature, brilliant as 

 rainbow, cliangealjle as a chameleon, perei 

 nlally full of wonder as the new moor 

 constant to her ideal as the Evening Star, 

 and always unmistakably herself. 



Diary and Tvetters of Josephine Preston Pea- 

 body. Selected and Edited by Christina Hopkin- 

 son Baker. With Illustrations. Houehton Mif- 

 flin Company. 



