Is it wise, then, say, in the waning day,
When the vessel is crack’d and old,
To cherish the battered potter’s clay
As though it were virgin gold? 
Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf,
Though prudent and sage you seem;
Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf,
And mine by the dazzling stream.

I had sense sufficient to see the uselessness of attempting to be other than I was.  In these days of fierce competition there was no chance for me—­opportunity, not talent, was the main requisite.  Fate had thought fit to deny me even one advantage or opportunity, thus I was helpless.  I set to work to cut my coat according to my cloth.  I manfully endeavoured to squeeze my spirit into “that state of life into which it has pleased God to call me”.  I crushed, compressed, and bruised, but as fast as I managed it on one side it burst out on another, and defied me to cram it into the narrow box of Possum Gully.

The restless throbbings and burnings
That hope unsatisfied brings,
The weary longings and yearnings
For the mystical better things,
Are the sands on which is reflected
The pitiless moving lake,
Where the wanderer falls dejected,
By a thirst he never can slake.

In a vain endeavour to slake that cruel thirst my soul groped in strange dark places.  It went out in quest of a God, and finding one not, grew weary.

By the unknown way that the atmosphere of the higher life penetrated to me, so came a knowledge of the sin and sorrow abroad in the world—­the cry of the millions oppressed, downtrodden, God-forsaken!  The wheels of social mechanism needed readjusting—­things were awry.  Oh, that I might find a cure and give it to my fellows!  I dizzied my brain with the problem; I was too much for myself.  A man with these notions is a curse to himself, but a woman—­pity help a woman of that description!  She is not merely a creature out of her sphere, she is a creature without a sphere—­a lonely being!

Recognizing this, I turned and cursed God for casting upon me a burden greater than I could bear—­cursed Him bitterly, and from within came a whisper that there was nothing there to curse.  There was no God.  I was an unbeliever.  It was not that I sought after or desired atheism.  I longed to be a Christian, and fought against unbelief.  I asked the Christians around me for help.  Unsophisticated fool!  I might as well have announced that I was a harlot.  My respectability vanished in one slap.  Some said it was impossible to disbelieve in the existence of a God:  I was only doing it for notoriety, and they washed their hands of me at once.

Not believe in God!  I was mad!

If there really was a God, would they kindly tell me how to find Him?

Pray! pray!

I prayed, often and ardently, but ever came that heart-stilling whisper that there was nothing to pray to.

Ah, the bitter, hopeless heart-hunger of godlessness none but an atheist can understand!  Nothing to live for in life—­no hope beyond the grave.  It plunged me into fits of profound melancholy.