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3full life is that which lives in past present & future; in the life of
4the intellect, of the emotions, of actual present labour.
5
6I quite understand that, it is quite right a man should say, “I cannot
7live all my life; I can only live part & select, the past, or a life
8of pure intellectual reflection; or the life of practical labour alone,
9” if I try to live more I shall not live at all.” I quite understand
10that a man should chose some tiny section of life & make that is all,
11& he may be quite wise & right in doing it. But that any intelligent
12man should not see the countless sides of life, should not wish he
13could live all, & should not that other men who have taken exactly the
14opposite part for their share, are just as right, that I can’t
15understand.
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17If I had twelve lives one life I should be a mother devoting myself
18entirely ^the joy of^ to bearing rearing & suckling my ^14^ children, one
19life I might devote to study of the past, one to labouring in the
20present for the future, one mainly to science another mainly to travel,
21 & so on. Now I’ve only one life, & try to satisfy that illimitable
22craving to live all lives ^I have always had ever since I could
23remember^ as far as I can in a small way, to sol living all round. I am
24not so narrow as to think other men must do it because I do. Darwin
25sacrificing all life & its possibilities to life in one narrow
26direction was right, so was Goethe right living all, so was Plato when
27he fought, governed wrote thought, & dreamed: so when Jesus when he
28preached his one living doctrine of love, & Buddha when he dreamed
29under his Bo tree. There is one glory of the moon & another of the
30stars, & each star differeth from another in glory.
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32As to Luther having saved the church, (I suppose you mean the Catholic
33church,) the unreadable ?woman or Jesus having made hypocrates, that
34you intend as a joke. It is not given to any mortal man to make &
35unmake such a thing a church or a hypocrate. Hypocrates & churches
36there will be till after countless ages human nature changes. What a
37man may do each soul is excert a tiny influence in the direction good
38& beautiful to him: & then he dies peaceful, having attained his end,
39whether it he making fairer one soul, making one impulse of tenderness
40& love in another soul, painting a picture, discovering a beautiful
41sequence in events, in & realizing the reason in the nature of the
42universe, & showing it to others, as all true scientific discoverors do.
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44I can’t understand your stand point in a man who if old in the days I
45first met you seemed one of the broadest least walled in souls I ever
46met. I shall never be a mathematician, nor a man of science making
47vast discoveries, nor a great leader of the people bound to them in
48love & sympathy & giving them voice, I shall never be the mother of
49ten children, creating them and feeling their dear soft hands on me; I
50shall never find out if I have the power for music I have always felt
51I have, shall never know if that craving to paint I have had since I
52was a little child was the craving of power, in my poor little handful
53of life, which consists now mainly of cooking & house cleaning, I
54shall know few things, I am only a broken and untried possibility –
55but this I have that I can sympathize with all the lives with all the
56endeavours, with all the accomplished works; even with all the work
57attempted & not accomplished of other men. I love nature, & I love men;
58 I love music & I love science; I love poetry & I love practical
59labour: I like to make a good pudding & see people eating it; & I like
60to write a book M that makes their life fuller. I can do very little
61and have never been so situated that I could do my best – but I can
62live all the lives in my love & sympathy!
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64I can sympathise with the man who spends all his life in collecting &
65cataloguing sea weeds; or who is merely a reader & critic of other
66men’s book, or lives in some other tiny corner of life – but I cannot
67understand the man who says my corner is the world, ^or^ your corner is
68the world. I love Plato & I love Aristotal too, I thank the gods for
69them the ?lived the beautiful lives & did the beautiful work I can
70only live & do through sympathy with them. All that is sad is that
71life is short & one can live so little of it beauty oneself.
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73Please tell me just what Ediths heart exercises are. If you can me a
74cheap book explaining them please get one ^it^ me, & I will send you the
75money. If you have one you could lend me I will return it.
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77It’s a curious solitary life I live here; seldom speaking or seeing a
78humanbeing. Cron goes out at eight in the morning, & when he comes
79back at seven, he sit and reads after dinner. I have never led
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81^such a solitary life because when I was a girl I had nature & in
82Europe I had friends^
83
84Olive
85