I see the promises in the Light. Oh, why--_why_ does it promise these things! Is not the burden of life already greater than I can bear? And there is the story of the Christ. It is beautiful. It is damningly beautiful. It draws the tears of pain and soft anguish from me at the sense of beauty. And when every nerve in me is melted and overflowing, then suddenly I am conscious that it is a lie--a _lie_. Everywhere I turn there is Nothing--Nothing. My soul wails out its grief in loneliness. My soul wanders hither and thither in the dark wilderness and asks, asks always in blind, dull agony, How long?--how long? February 22. Life is a pitiful thing. February 23. I stand in the midst of my sand and barrenness and gaze hard at everything that is within my range of vision--and ruin my eyes trying to see into the darkness beyond. And nearly always I feel a vague contempt for you, fine, brave world--for you and all the things that I see from my barrenness. But I promise you, if some one comes from among you over the sunset hill one day with love for me, I will fall at your feet. I am a selfish, conceited, impudent little animal, it is true, but, after all, I am only one grand conglomeration of Wanting--and when some one comes over the barren hill to satisfy the wanting, I will be humble, humble in my triumph. It is a difficult thing--a most difficult thing--to live on as one year follows another, from childhood slowly to womanhood, without one single sharer of your life--to be alone, always alone, when your one friend is gone. Oh, yes, it is hard! Particularly when one is not high-minded and spiritual, when one’s near longing is not a God and a religion, when one wants above all things the love of a human being--when one is a woman, young and all alone. Doubtless you know this. After all, fine brave world, there are some things that you know very well. Whether or not you care is a quite different matter. You have the power to take this wooden heart in a tight, suffocating grasp. You have the power to do this with pain for me, and you have the power to do it with ravishing gentleness. But whether or not you will is another matter. You may think evil of me before you have finished reading this. You will be very right to think so--according to your standards. But sometimes you see evil where there is no evil, and think evil when the only evil is in your own brains. My life is a dry and barren life. You can change it. “Oh, the little more, and how much it is! And the little less, and what worlds away.” Yes, you can change it. Stranger things have happened. Again, whether you will--that is a quite different thing.