Sydney Stephens Quotes

As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.

...Nature becomes your teacher, and from her you will learn what is beautiful and who you are and what is your special quest in life and whither you should go...You live on manna vouchsafed to you daily, miraculously. You stretch out arms for hidden gifts, you year toward the moonbeams and the stars, you listen with new ears to bird's songs and the murmurs of trees and streams....From day to day you keep your log, your day-book of the soul, and you may think at first that it is a mere record of travel and of facts; but something else will be entering into it, poetry, the new poetry of your life, and it will be evident to a seeing eye that you are gradually becoming an artist in life, you are learning the gentle art of tramping, and it is giving you an artist's joy in creation.

For tramping is the grammar of living. Few people learn the grammar - but it is worth while.

When Sydney stood and left, Clara buried her face in her hands with a sob, never more alone in her entire life than in that moment. Not in the Black Place. Not as she scrubbed toilets with Mother telling her how stupid she was, or how lazy and worthless. She was alone. Completely and utterly alone.