First, the Peon’s love, and the children’s, and that of my friends. Love: and the Love from which love came. By the time all that is stowed away in the void, it has rather a “gone” look about it—for a void. And Grumpy’s grin has a tuck in it. Then a sense of humor—the most blessed thing, save love itself, ever given to human kind. It keeps one sane and balanced where without it one would go mad. A source of justice it is, a bond of sympathy, a destroyer of egotism, a solace in suffering, a staff to courage, an open door of escape from all that is unbearable in life. Next, the power to hold my tongue when things hurt, and to keep the whine out of my voice when I’m nothing but whine inside. There are love, laughter, and silence; and as void-fillers they go a long way. But there are other things for the chinks. For I can read a little and write a little, and think a little, as against the black idleness of those three years. And beauty—wind in the tree-tops, the arching blue, the flicker of light and shade—beauty everywhere, in fact; and back of beauty the Thought that designed both it and the eyes to see it. Oh, it is a beautiful world! And though one’s body lies idle, one’s thoughts may go everywhere, and are everywhere at home. And may not endurance itself, however passive, yet rise to the point of achievement, if only one endure in the right way? And if liberty be measured by one’s capacity to do without—oh, how can any walls of suffering shut one in when the way up is always open—up, to the presence of God? * * * * * _May 28th._ Whenever I think I’ve overcome a temptation, and can afford to rest, something else comes pouncing and catches me napping. This time it was Cousin Jane. I’m not a bit sorry I sent her home—it was high time for her to go. But I needn’t have been so blazing mad when I did it. She hasn’t been near me for ages, but she came at last, exactly when she very specially should have kept away. So as I lay there on the porch sofa—for I couldn’t get out in the yard this week—I heard the familiar pile-driver tread, and opened my eyes to behold her at the corner of the porch, personified virtue, somewhat overheated by the afternoon sun, and looking rather limp about the collar. But there was nothing limp about her stolid mouth, nor in her hard black eyes. She had come for a purpose, and was not displeased to think I wouldn’t enjoy it.