(from Journal of Katherine Mansfield, 1914-1922)
“By health, I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love–the earth and the wonders thereof–the sea–the sun. All that we mean when speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good–a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.”
…………….
“I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house. grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of the expression of this, I want to be writing.”
…………….
“But warm, eager, living life–to be rooted in life–to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing else. That is what I must try for.”