Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/171

 My soul is wandering in a wilderness.

There is a great light sometimes that draws my soul toward it. When my soul turns toward it, it shines out brilliant and dazzling and awful—and the worn, sensitive thing shrinks away, and shivers, and is faint.

Shall my soul have to know this Light, inevitably? Must it, some day, plunge into this?

Oh, it may be—it may be. But I know that I shall die with the pain.

There are times when the great Light is dim and beautiful as the starlight—the utter agony of it—the cruel, ineffable loveliness!

Do you understand this? I am telling you my young, passionate life-agony? Do you listen to it indifferently? Has it no meaning for any one? For me it means everything. For me it makes life old, long, weariness.

It may be that you know. And perhaps you would even weep a little with me if you had time.