The ignition of one youth, the finding of his work for one youth, is a worthy life task. The same possibility of service holds true for all kinds of workmen; these things are not alone for the artists and the craftsmen and the professions. There is one boy to linger about the forge of an artisan, after the others have gone. I would have the artisan forget the thing he is doing, to look into the eyes of that boy--and the chemist, the electrician, the florist.
It is true that the expression called for here is mainly through written words, but that is only our particularity. It need not be so.... The work here would not do for all.... A young woman came and sat with us for several days. She was so still that I did not know what was happening in her mind. My experience with the others had prevailed to make me go slowly, and not to judge. We all liked her, all learned to be glad that she had come. I asked no expression from her for several days. When I finally suggested something of the kind, I felt the sudden terror in the room. Her expression came in a very brief form, and it showed me the bewilderment with which she had encountered the new points of view in the Chapel. I learned afresh that one must not hurry; that my first work was to put to rest her fears of being called upon. I impressed upon the class the next day that we have all the time there is; that we want nothing; that our work is to establish in due time the natural expressions of our faculties. To the young woman in particular, I said that when she felt like it she could write again.
Presently there was a day's absence and another. I sent the little girl to see if she were ill. The little girl was gone the full afternoon. All I ever got from that afternoon was this sentence:
I have wondered many times if she would have become a nurse had I allowed her to sit unexpressed for a month instead of a week; permitting her surely to find her ease and understanding of us.... Still we must have nurses.
... And then the Columbia young man--a big fellow and a soul. I had talked to him for many nights in an Upper Room class in the city. He took a cottage here through part of the first summer, before the Chapel began; then, through the months of Chapel and story work in the evening, I had good opportunity to become acquainted with the processes of his mind and heart. Of the last, I have nothing but admiration; invincible integrity, a natural kindness, a large equipment after the manner of the world's bestowal--but Inertia.