n the shadow of a tree,
holding to each other with outstretched hands. As I approached them I saw
the woman was weeping quietly. There was no outcry; no kiss even passed
between them; only a long gaze, a quivering of the hands, and he was gone.
I saw the woman stand a moment looking hungrily after him and then walk
away still weeping. And the sight stung me with madness. What is the
meaning of these endless meetings and partings--meeting and parting till
the last great separation comes and then no more? Are our lives no better
than glinting pebbles that are tossed on the beach and never rest?
Suddenly the blood surged up into my head. It was as if all the forces of
my physical being had concentrated into one frenzied desire to possess the
thing I loved. For a moment I reeled as if smitten with a stroke, and then
without reasoning, scarcely knowing what I did, started into a stumbling
run. Only the evident amazement of the strollers on the Avenue when I left
the Park brought me back partially to my senses, yet the madness still
surged through my veins. All my philosophy was gone, all my remoteness
from life; I was stung by that fury that comes to beast and man alike; I
was bewildered by the feeling that my emotions were no longer my own, but
were shared by the mob of strangers in the street. It was the passion of
love, pure and simple, unsophisticated by questioning; and it had turned
my brain. Withal there ran through me an insane desire to commit some
atrocious crime, to waylay and strike, to speak words of outrageous
insult. I do verily believe that only the opportunity was wanting, some
chance conflict of the street or temptation of solitude, to have changed
these demoniac impulses to action--I whose most violent physical
achievement has been to cross over Broadway. It is good that I am home and
the blood has left my brain. What shall I think of this if I read it ten
years hence?

XLVI

JACK TO PHILIP

DEAR SIR:

I have not wrote you before. This is a beautiful place. I like it,
especially the young lady. The old man have been acting wild, like a cop
when he can't find out who done it. The difference is that it is the bible
in the old man and the devil in the cop. He says you have hoodooed the
young lady, and he says let you be enathermered. This is a religious cuss
word. The young lady don't cry. She is dead game, and have lost her
colour.

So good by,