with the hope that they may in some
measure comfort his sad heart. I went so far as to purchase material for
the promised set of jackets, when suddenly I remembered that I was
ignorant of both his age and size. You have never told me that, though you
have given me such a real picture of him that I could almost trust my
imagination to cut those garments to fit him!

Your account of O'Meara's death affected me deeply. With what sublime
abandon does such a man let go his soul into the mystery of that silence
which we call eternity!

Is it not strange how the same impressions come to many, but by different
ways! "It will be long before I forget how alien and far-away the noises
of the street sounded as I passed out of that chamber of silence," you
said, and the sentence recalled a somewhat similar experience of my own on
Cumberland Island, where father and I went last summer for a short
vacation. One day, leaving the group of happy bathers to their surf, I
climbed up inland among the sand-hills, that lie along the shore like the
white pillows of fabulous sea-gods. Presently I came upon one of those
great sand-pits that stretch along the Island, deep and wide like mighty
graves. Far below me a whole forest stood in ghostly silence, with every
whitening limb lifted in supplication, as if all had died in a terrified
struggle with the engulfing sands. Unawares, I had happened upon one of
Nature's griefs--and I do not know how to tell you, but the sight of it
aged me. Of a sudden this death of the trees seemed a far-off part of my
own experience. I was swept out of this contesting, energetic world into a
still region where great events come to pass in silence, and inevitably.
And so real was the illusion that, as I turned to hurry back, it seemed to
me that centuries had passed since I saw the same little tuft of flowers
like a group of purple fairies nodding to me from the top of a tall cliff.
And so I stood there confused by the significance of this silence, so
incredible that even the winds could not shake it. I felt so near and kin
to death that I became "alien" to all the living world about me. For the
first time in my life, I lost the _sense_ of God, which is always a kind
of mental protection against the terrors of infinity. There was nothing to
pray to, only the sea on one side and this grave on the other, with a
little trembling life between.

Thus you will understand that not only have I had a similar experience to
y