Christ said that. But peace came from God--the peace of God that passeth all understanding. How could Christ give that? He put Himself between God and man. Why could not people get at God direct? He was somewhere. The steam was disappearing out of the window; the row of objects ranged along the far side of the bath grew clear. Miriam looked at them, seeking escape from the problem--the upright hand-glass, the brush bag propped against it, the small bottle of Jockey Club, the little pink box of French face powder ... perhaps one day she would learn to use powder without looking like a pierrot ... how nice to have a thick white skin that never changed and took powder like a soft bloom.... But as long as the powder box were there it would be impossible to reach that state of peace and freedom that Thomas à Kempis meant. “To Miriam, from her friend, Harriett A. Perne.” Had Miss Haddie found anything of it? No--she was horribly afraid of God and turned to Christ as a sort of protecting lover to be flattered and to lean upon.... There were so many exquisite and wise things in the book; the language was so beautiful. But somehow there was a whining going all through it ... fretfulness. Anger too--“I had rather feel compunction than know the definition thereof.” Why not both? He was talking at someone in that sentence. The Kingdom of Heaven is _within_ you. But even Christ went about sad, trying to get people to do some sort of trick that He said was necessary before they could find God--something to do with Himself. There was something wrong about that. If one were perfectly still, the sense of God was there. Supposing everyone could be got to stay perfectly still, until they died ... like that woman in the book who was dying so happily of starvation ... and then the friend came fussing in with soup.... Things were astounding enough; enough to make you die of astonishment, if you did nothing at all. Being _alive_. If one could realise that clearly enough, one _would_ die. Everything everyone did was just a distraction from astonishment. It could only be done in a convent.... It cost money to get into a convent, except as a servant. If you were a servant you could not stay day and night in your cell--watching the light and darkness until you died.... Perhaps in women’s convents they would not let you anyhow.