The Story of Mary MacLane/March 16
TO-DAY I walked over the sand, and it was almost beautiful. The sun was sinking and the sky was filled with roses and gold.
Then came my soul and confronted me. My soul is wondrous fair. It is like a young woman. The beauty of it is too great for human eyes to look upon. It is too great for mine. Yet I look.
My soul said to me: "I am sick."
I answered: "And I am sick."
"We may be well," said my soul. "Why are we not well?"
"How may we be well?" I asked.
"We may throw away all our vanity and false pride," said my soul. "We way take on a new life. We may learn to wait and to possess ourselves in patience. We may labor and overcome."
"We can do none of these things," I cried. "Have I not tried all of them some time in my short life? And have I not waited and wanted until you have become faint with pain? Have I not looked and longed? Dear soul, why do you not resign yourself? Why can you not stay quiet and trouble yourself and me no more? Why are you always straining and reaching? There isn't anything for you. You are wearing yourself out."
My soul made answer: "I may strain and reach until only one worn nerve of me is left. And that one nerve may be scourged with whips and burned with fire. But I will keep one atom of faith. I may go bad, but I will keep one atom of faith in Love and in the Truth that is Love. You are a genius, but I am no genius. The years—a million of years—may do their utmost to destroy the single nerve. They may lash and beat it. I will keep my one atom of faith."
"You are not wise," I said. "You have been wandering and longing for a time that seems a thousand years—through my cold, dark childhood to my cold, dark womanhood. Is that not enough to quiet you? Is that not enough to teach you the lesson of Nothing? You are not a genius, but you are not a fool."
"I will keep my one atom of faith," said my soul.
"But lie and sleep now," I said. "Don't reach after that Light any more. Let us both sleep a few years."
"No," said my soul.
"Oh, my soul," I wailed, "look away at that glowing copper horizon—and beyond it. Let us go there now and take an infinite rest. Now! We can bear this no longer."
"No," said my soul; "we will stay here and bear more. There would be no rest yet beyond the copper horizon. And there is no need of going anywhere. I have my one atom of faith."
I gazed at my soul as it stood plainly before me, weak and worn and faint, in the fading light. It had one atom of faith, it said, and tried to hold its head high and to look strong and triumphant. Oh, the irony—the pathos of it!
My soul, with its one pitiful atom of faith, looked only what it was—a weeping, hunted thing.