nsion was lifted up with a strange and austere
exultation. For, gazing upon these wide silences, he learned that the
indignities and conflicts and weary ambitions of life meant little to him,
as the storms and tumultuous forces of the earth mean nothing to the heart
of Nature, and in that lesson was his peace. One concern only was his,--to
wrest from the impenetrable mystery of the world an image of everlasting
beauty, and to set forth this image to others whose vision was not yet
purged of trouble.

LXI

FROM PHILIP'S DIARY

I can rest no more to-night, for I have been visited by strange dreams. It
seemed to me in my sleep that I wandered desolate in a desolate land--not
in wide waste places as I dreamed after seeing Rousseau's picture, but in
some wilderness of trees where the light from a thin moon drifted rarely
through the slow-waving boughs. And always as I wandered, I knew that
somewhere afar off in that dim forest my beloved whom I had deserted lay
in an agony of suspense, waiting for me and calling to me through the
night. It seemed almost as if the years of a lifetime passed, and still I
sought and could not find her--only shadows met me and fantastic shapes
out of the darkness greeted me with staring eyes. And, oh, I thought, if
this long agony of solitude troubles her heart as it troubles mine and she
perish in fear because I have forsaken her! My distress grew to be more
than I could bear. And then in a loud voice I cried to her: "Fear not,
beloved; be at peace until I come!" I think I must actually have called
out in my sleep, for I awoke suddenly and started up with the sound still
ringing in my ears. Ah, Jessica, Jessica, what have I done! My own misery
has lain so heavily upon me that it has not occurred to me to imagine what
you too must have suffered. Indeed, the wonder of your love has been to me
so incomprehensibly sweet that the notion of any actual suffering on your
part has never really entered my thought. My own need I understood--can it
be that our separation has caused the same weary emptiness in your days
that has made the word peace a mockery to me? Can it even be that while I
have sought refuge and a kind of forgetfulness in the domination of my
work, you have been left a prey to unrelieved despondency? You accused me
once of conscientious selfishness--have I made you a victim of that sin?
Idle questions all, for I have come to a great awakening and a sure
determination. Dear Jess