The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I
Saturday afternoon
As usual, I thought I was going to have it all my own way—get well, be happy, the horror of my disease (it is a horror) over, peace with L. M. and ease to work in. What a fathead I am! But of those … I'll get well; and that's all and enough. Let the others wait. Work, of course. Work is second breath. When you spoke of planting a tree of hope, I felt: Oh, it was you to speak so. Plant it, plant it. I will not shake it. Let me sit under it and look up at it. Spread it over me and meet me there often and let us hold each other close and look up into the boughs for buds and flowers. No, there's no God. That is queer. This morning I wanted to say ‘God keep you’ or ‘Heaven guard us.’ Then I thought of The Gods, but they are marble statues with broken noses. There is no God or Heaven or help of any kind but love. Perhaps Love can do everything. “Lo! I have made of love all my religion.” Who said that? It's simply marvellous.
L. M. is ready to go. I shall have the place to myself. It's nice. Then I turn into a real mouse and make as tiny a noise as possible, so as not to disturb the life around me.