'GOD'S PEACE" 317
In this way my work grows slowly and jerkily through varying moods. Do I tarry because new events are weaving a romance into the old memories, a romance which is still in the making, and of which I at all events do not know the end ? Or do I hesitate out of a certain cowardly fear for the friends, male and female, I have left behind ? Is it the ironical smiles, with which I believe they will read my book about my pilgrimage to child- hood's holy land, which sometimes stops my pen ? Am I really, here in my secure loneliness away from all rumours and remarks, still under the slavish fear of society ?
I confided my fears to-night to Greta, as we went for our evening stroll on the hill. When I had finished my confession, she said simply with bent head, as though apologising for expressing an opinion, 'From what I know of literature, and I have not read so little, and as far as I am able to judge, it is the fear of speaking out, of losing themselves in their subjects, which is the fault of most authors. Whenever I read a book, I have the feeling that even the author, who pretends to be very frank, has always got an eye on the reader's jury, is always thinking of his own dignity, always trimming and adorning his tale, so that no one shall have cause for indignation or scorn. If you care for my advice, which it is perhaps presumptuous of me to give, then write as if you had no other public but me, an ignorant girl, not wise enough for either indignation or scorn.'
