just rampantly rail; they don't--though they think they do--understand.
They mix up every _passe_ narrowness and bigotry and hypocrisy and
sentimental cant in one foul stew, and then rush from it, with held
noses, screaming "Puritanism! _Faugh!_" Well, it does, Phil--their stew!
So, often, for that matter--and to high heaven--do the clever ones!

"But it isn't Puritanism, the real thing. You see, I know the real
thing--for I know you. Ignorance, bigotry, hypocrisy,
sentimentalism--such things have no part in your life. And yet you're a
Puritan, and I'm not. Something divides us where we are most alike. What
is it, Phil?

"May I tell you? I almost dare believe I've puzzled it out.

"You're a simon-Puritan, dear, because you won't trust that central
goodness, your own heart; the very thing in you on whose virgin-goldness
I would stake my life! You won't trust it in yourself; and when you find
it in others, you don't fully trust it in them. You've purged your
philosophy of Original Sin, but it still secretly poisons the marrow of
your bones. You guard your soul's strength as possible
weakness--something that might vanish suddenly, at a pinch. How silly of
you! For it's the _you_-est you, the thing you can never change or
escape. Instead of worrying over yourself or others--me?--you could
safely spread yourself, Phil dear, all over the landscape, lie back in
the lap of Mother Earth and twiddle your toes and smile! Walt Whitman's
way! He may have overdone it now and then, posed about it; but I'm on
his side, not yours. It's heartier--human-er--more fun! Yes, Master
Puritan--more fun! That's a life value you've mostly missed. But it's
never too late, Phil, for a genuine cosmic spree.

"Now I've done scolding back at you for scolding at me.--But I loved
your sermon. I hope you won't shudder over mine?"

V

The above too-cryptic letter badly needs authoritative annotation, which
I now proceed to give you--at perilous length. But it will lead us
far....

* * * * *

Though it is positively not true that Phil and I, having covenanted on a
hands-off policy, were independently hoping for the worst, so far as
Susan's ability to cope unaided with New York was concerned;
nevertheless, the ease with which she made her way there, found her feet
without us and danced ahead, proved for some reason oddly disturbing to
us both. Here was a child, of high talents certainly, perhaps of
genius--the li