" I'd been thinking that not only colors are imprisoned on grey days but the sun too. For when there's a grey wall between one and the other who's to say which is prisoner and which is free? When the heart aches one for the other there's little to choose between them. That's a cruel thing men do to God, making a prisoner of Him."

"I don't think I know what you mean," said Michael.

"The grey clouds, they are like men's unbelief," said Harriet. "And men live frozen and afraid when a touch of the sun would change all that. But they imprison the sun."

"Many who would like to believe, can't, Harriet," said Michael.

"That's a lie," said Harriet calmly. "If you want a good thing badly enough you get it. Not overnight, maybe. But you get it."

Michael looked at the old woman keenly . . . she had power . . . . He began to understand what immense concentration of power there can be in a life withdrawn if discipline can keep pace with withdrawal. Without discipline withdrawal was a disintegration, but with it what he felt in Harriet. This spring day was a festival day, a day for rejoicing in new warmth and new life for several people. How much that had to do with Harriet's refusal to imprison the sun, with one soul's power to dispel the clouds for another, he'd no idea. "

― Elizabeth Goudge , The Rosemary Tree