the tiny
little ants, what intelligence they display in their work; little
kittens and dogs playing in the streets, what unrestrained joy is
theirs! Work ought to be a pleasure and a blessing: and it would be so
if we could only choose our labour, if we could create, do those things
for which we are fitted, voluntarily, because of the need within us, for
the outward expression of our life, our hope and joy. So, work would
cease to be the curse it is to-day.

"And surely if we were free men and women, we would find our place in
the scheme of things, surely each one of us would seek the place suited
to his individual nature, and so perhaps at last everything would be a
part of the harmonious whole.

"When I think of things as they are and as they might be, I grow dizzy
and sick at heart, that mankind can be so blind, so hopelessly ignorant,
so unspeakably cruel, so weak and cowardly. I am only a novice, I know,
and there is so much for me to know, to learn, to strive for--much that
I, and hundreds and thousands of others, will never reach, for we are
burdened with heavy chains which we cannot break. Yet, there must be
somewhere on this big earth, some little place fitted for me, some
small corner where I must be of some value to myself.

"To you, no doubt, my sufferings and struggles will seem petty and my
ideas crude and commonplace; but, if so, the pity is all the greater.
After the agony I went through, freedom seemed to me the noblest thing
in the world, and I thought it the solution of everything. Since then my
ideas, perhaps, have become somewhat less 'crude,' but I have never for
a moment lost faith in the thought that freedom is the most essential,
the most necessary condition for us, if we are to endure life."

It is certainly what Marie calls "crude" to talk of liberty without
careful definition. Absolute freedom is inconceivable. But I am not
interested in presenting an argument: I am interested in the description
of a state of mind, of a section of society, of a certain emotional view
of things. The value, however, of these general ideas is undoubted, in
the spiritual improvement and moral comfort of thousands of people. I
think that Marie and Terry and the other characters that will appear in
this book are decidedly better off for the ideas they hold: that about
these ideas, or rather ideals, perhaps, they have grouped a society in
which they are not outcasts, in which their lives seem from some points
of