These thoughts are depressing I know. They are depressing, I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant, Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting To the purpose of One Above who is experimenting With various mixtures of human character which goes best, All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us. There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to do Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.

She related that her preoccupation with death began when Stevie Smith was seven at a time when Stevie Smith was very distressed at being sent away from her mother. She also wrote nine volumes of poetry. In particular Stevie Smith asks how the necessity of fighting Fascism can be achieved without descending into the nationalism and dehumanisation that fascism represents.

Florence Margaret Smith known as Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971) was an English poet and novelist.