lassic groves of the ancients, where the wings of a bird might
measure off destiny to a lover in an hexameter of light across his
morning, and where the whole world was full of sweet oracles. The truth is
we have need of an old Latin deity now. There was a romantic sympathy
between the Olympian dynasty of gods and common men, more vital than our
ascetic piety. And there are some experiences so essentially pagan that no
other gods can afford to bless them!

Indeed, since your departure I have found a sort of occult companionship
with you in reading once more some of the old Latin poets. Father is
gratified, for he thinks that after all I may sober into a Christian
scholarship with the old Roman monks, and to this end he will tolerate
even Catullus. But really the wisdom of love has given me a keener
appreciation of these sweet classics. Did you ever think how wonderful is
the youth, the simplicity, the morning freshness of all their thoughts. It
is we moderns who have grown old, pedantic; and when some lyrical
experience, such as love, suddenly rejuvenates us, drawing us back into
the primal poetic consciousness, then we turn instinctively to these
ancients for an interpretation of our hearts,--also because their
definition of beauty, which is always the garment Love wears, is better
than we can make now. With us "The Beautiful" is often mere cant, or a
form of sentimentality, but with them it was a principle, a spirtual
faculty that determined all proportions. Thus their very philosophies show
a beautiful formality, a Parthenon entrance to life. And from first to
last they never left the gay amorous gods of nature out of their thoughts.
This is a relief, a tender companionship, that we have lost from our
prosaic world. You see Jessica grows "pedantic" also! The poem you sent
has awakened in me these reflections. The words of it slipped into my
heart as warm as kisses.

But I have anxieties to tell you of. I fear trouble is brewing for us in
father's prayer-closet. You remember the little volume you gave me, _The
Forest Philosophers of India_? Well, he found it last night in the
library, where I had inadvertently left it; and recognising the author as
the same dragon who threatens the peace and piety of his household, he
settled himself vindictively to reading it. The result exceeded my worst
fears. If his daughter were about to become the hypnotised victim of an
Indian juggler he would not be more alarmed. He holds that