Library of Information on Women's Issues

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I cried, "If I may not stay in Heaven, then let me go down to Hell, and I will grasp the hands of men and women there; and slowly, holding one another's hands, we will work our way upwards." Still God pointed. And I threw myself upon the earth and cried, "Earth is so small, so mean! It is not meet a soul should see Heaven and be cast out again!" And God laid his hand on me, and said, "Go back to earth: that which you seek is there." I awoke: it was morning. The silence and darkness of the night were gone. Through my narrow attic window I saw the light of another day. I closed my eyes and turned towards the wall: I could not look upon the dull grey world. In the streets below, men and women streamed past by hundreds; I heard the beat of their feet on the pavement. Men on their way to business; servants on errands; boys hurrying to school; weary professors pacing slowly the old street; prostitutes, men and women, dragging their feet wearily after last night's debauch; artists with quick, impatient footsteps; tradesmen for orders; children to seek for bread. I heard the stream beat by. And at the alley's mouth, at the street corner, a broken barrel-organ was playing; sometimes it quavered and almost stopped, then went on again, like a broken human voice. I listened: my heart scarcely moved; it was as cold as lead. I could not bear the long day before me; and I tried to sleep again; yet still I heard the feet upon the pavement. And suddenly I heard them cry loud as they beat, "We are seeking!--we are seeking!--we are seeking!" and the broken barrel-organ at the street corner sobbed, "The Beautiful!--the Beautiful!-- the Beautiful!" And my heart, which had been dead, cried out with every throb, "Love!--Truth!--the Beautiful!--the Beautiful!" It was the music I had heard in Heaven that I could not sing there. And fully I awoke. Upon the faded quilt, across my bed a long yellow streak of pale London sunlight was lying. It fell through my narrow attic window. I laughed. I rose. I was glad the long day was before me. Paris and London.

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