what
loneliness and terror such selfishness is based. A man is always
sufficient unto himself, particularly if he can abstract and divert
himself into a line of thought as you are able to do, but a woman without
a lover is a pathetic thing. There is no real reason for her existence;
all her little miracles of expression and posing are for naught. She is a
sort of prima donna lost out of the play. There is no one to give her the
happy cue to the whole meaning of life. Oh, my Love! I _cannot_ live
without a lover. Do not bereave me! I should shrivel up, I am sure,--grow
old and sour and sad. I might even become a deaconess with Hull-House
propensities. I am a naive beggar, you see; I ask all you have, and admit
that I am unwilling to give in return what I myself have.

Your account of O'Meara interests me. But what right have you to slip out
of your stern character as a merely spiritual man, and assume the guise of
a good Samaritan? Really it is not fair; your tender compassion is
illogical, and, however benign, I cannot accept it as evidence in your
favour. But your account of the poor man's distress touched my heart. And
you ask me what ought to be done with the little goblin boy. Dear Philip,
could _we_ not adopt him? Think how many years then, we should have to
correspond in and to dispute with each other about his upbringing! I would
make the jackets and you should furnish the ethics for him. You should
provide a home for him, and I would give a little of the warmth that any
woman's tenderness imparts to any child. I will begin at once with a
maternal dictation,--he must be sent into the country. For children are
like lambs, I think; they also need to grow up in a green field, and to
gambol there. He must have no cares, no obligations--just be encouraged to
let go all the good and evil there is in him. When he has expanded to his
natural size morally and physically, we can tell better what to do with
him. Are you laughing at me, or are you scandalised at such a proposition?
Then why did you ask my advice? When a child is without parents, is it not
better to provide him with a pair of them, even if one is a wizard who
knows how to metamorphose himself into many different personalities, such
as sage, mystic, lover, good Samaritan, and I know not how many more?

XXIV

PHILIP TO JESSICA

[THIS LETTER WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE PRECEDING LETTER OF JESSICA'S, BUT WAS
NOT RECEIVED UNTIL LATER.]

DEAR JESSICA:

I