At about quarter of seven, the baby in bed, I went out to walk in the garden when Banks met me: “Mr. Harcourt … publishing house.” I rushed in, breathless. “Mrs. Lindbergh” (from out in Greenwich somewhere), “Mr. Sloan has brought in your manuscript this morning and I’ve just finished it. I couldn’t put it down. It’s splendid. I would take it if it were written by Jane Smith. It’s a good story, it’s moving, it’s well constructed, and parts of it border on poetry.” By this time I was quite ga-ga and showed it –how pleased I was. Then he told me about various things to change. Wants to close deal and see Charles and me tomorrow. “You’ve written a book, my dear.” And closing, “I have quite a little glow I don’t often get.” I said I’d call back.
Then I went and stood looking out the window, completely happy. They like it — and my happiness was pure and tangible and right there. It’s true — I have it, then. It’s here. Tasting one of those long-waited-for, on-a-pedestal moments, I almost shouted for C. I wanted so to tell him and he didn’t come and didn’t come.
I went out and walked in the garden, counting up the other moments like it — moments of personal triumph. Not happiness exactly, something fiercer, and probably not a very praiseworthy emotion, and yet it wasn’t pure ambition, for other things entered into it — other moments of joy. The Jordan Prize announcement in chpel, but also my first proposal, and my first kiss, and then C. asking me to marry him, and my first child and my second. And soloing a plane, and that moment off Africa when I got WSL. And H.N. (Harold Nicolson), after reading the Geographic aritcle, telling me I should write. They are moments of power and fitness. They are personal, but they are more than that: “I fit into this world. There is a place for me. There is some reason for my living. I can hold my head up.” It is that feeling.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Locked Rooms and Open Doors: Diaries and Letters 1933-1935
