Because of course she had ...

Because of course she had known she must go. She always did the thing because in obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root.
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 Elizabeth Goudge

Quotes from the same author

to know perfect happiness a woman may be a mother, but must be a grandmother.
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 Elizabeth Goudge
Sensible fathers and mothers, when their children marry, go back to the old days and renew their youth.
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 Elizabeth Goudge
Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.
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 Elizabeth Goudge
She long ago accepted the fact that happiness is like, swallows in spring. It may come and nest under your eaves or it may not. You cannot command it.
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 Elizabeth Goudge
...there began to come to her a first dim realization of God's humility. Rejected by the proud in His own right by what humble means He chose to succor them; through the spirit of a child, a poor gypsy or an old man, by a song perhaps, or even it might be by the fall of a leaf or the scent of a flower. For His infinite and humble patience nothing was too small to advance His purpose of salvation and eternity was not too long for its accomplishment.
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 Elizabeth Goudge