ever of unrest which has no name. Possibly a
lad of different temperament might not have kept housed so long; but he
was apparently dreamy, reflective, in love with simple pleasures, and,
though a splendid young animal, inspired and subdued by a thrilling
quality of soul. And he woke up. How he awoke may be learned only from
his letters.

These papers have, by one of the incredible chances of life, come into
my hands. I see no possible wrong in their publication, for now the
Humes are dead, father and son; nay, even the name adopted here was not
their own. They were two slight bubbles of being, destined to rise, to
float for a time, and to be again resolved into the unknown sea. Yet
while they lived, they were iridescent; the colors of a far-away sun
played upon them, and they sent him back his gleams. To lose them
wholly out of life were some pain to those of us who have been
privileged to love them through their own written confessions. So here
are they given back to the world which in no other way could adequately
know them.

[Sidenote: _Francis Hume to the Unknown Friend_[1]]

[1] This title is adopted by the editor that the narrative may be
at least approximately clear. The paragraphs headed thus were
scribblings on loose sheets: a sort of desultory journal.

I never had a friend! Did any human creature twenty years old ever
write that before, unless he did it in a spirit of bitterness because
he was out of humor with his world? Yet I can say it, knowing it to be
the truth. My father and I are one, the oak and its branch, the fern
and its fruitage; but for somebody to be the mirror of my own thoughts,
tantalizingly strange, intoxicatingly new, where shall I look? Ah, but
I know! I will create him from my own longings. He shall be born of the
blood and sinew of my brain and heart. Stand forth, beautiful one, made
in the image of my fancy, and I will tell thee all--all I am ashamed to
tell my father, and tired of imprisoning in my own soul. What shall I
call thee? Friend: that will be enough, all-comprehending and rich in
joy. To-day I have needed thee more than ever, though it is only to-day
that I learned to recognize the need. All the morning a sweet languor
held me, warm, like the sun, and touched with his fervor, so that I
felt within me darts of impelling fire. I sat in the woods by the
spring, my eyes on the dancing shadows at my feet, not thinking, not
willing, yet expectant. I felt as i