Page:I, Mary MacLane (1917).pdf/117

 Music of the world!—

A little door inside me opens to those Voices.

My little door opens at the first shriek of the first child out of doors, and I hear not only the hundreds of vivid piercing Voices but more—their far-off echoes.

They are the Voices of children, children light-held in crude cold innocence. The eyes of the children are clear—their impulses and instincts rule their little lives. They are yet untouched by the tiredness and terror and shame and sorrow of being human beings.

So the Sound of their Voices sweeps out resistless and regardless as the sea or the sun which makes nothing of its own strength or weakness. And through my little spirit-door I hear them, the poignant common little sweet Voices, echoing, flying away, farther and farther: along the roads: over plains and hills: through valleys long worldly distances from here: through streets: through stone buildings and dingy courts: through big rich houses: through homes of comfort and homes of misery and homes of desolate smugness: into lifeless social foyers: into learned places: into law-courts and cabinet-rooms of nations: into graveyards and churches and down into dead-vaults: into theatres: into clinics: into shops: into factories: into dives