"That's a good question," said Mrs. Graves. "No, it's not an aim at
all. It's too big for that; an aim is quite on a lower level.
There's no aim in the big things. A man doesn't fall ill with an
aim--he doesn't fall in love with an aim. It just comes upon him."

"But then," said Howard, "is it more than a sort of artistic gift
which some have and many have not? I have known a few real artists,
and they just did not care for anything else in the world. All the
rest of life was just a passing of time, a framework to their work.
There was an artist I knew, who was dying. The doctor asked him if
he wanted anything. 'Just a full day's work,' he said."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "it is like that in a way; it is the one
thing worth doing and being. But it isn't a conscious using of
minutes and opportunities--it isn't a plan; it is just a fulness of
life, rejoicing to live, to see, to interpret, to understand. It
doesn't matter what life you live--it is how you live it. Life is
only the cup for the liquor which must else be spilled. I can only
use an old phrase--it is being 'in the spirit': when you ask
whether it is a special gift, of course some people have it more
strongly and consciously than others. But it is the thing to which
we are all tending sooner or later; and the mysterious thing about
it is that so many people do not seem to know they have it. Yet it
is always just the becoming aware of what is there."

"How do you account for that?" said Howard.

"Why," said Mrs. Graves, "to a great extent because religion is in
such an odd state. It is as if the people who knew or suspected the
secret, did all they could to conceal it--just as parents try to