he author calmly asserts the theory of
monism, he actually gagged with indignation: "My child, do you know that
this godless wretch claims that the same principle of life which makes the
cabbage also vitalises man?" I looked horrified, but I could barely
restrain my laughter; for, indeed, there are "flat-dutch"-headed gentlemen
in his congregation who might as well have come up at the end of a cabbage
stalk for all the thinking they do. But I need not tell you that the
magazine containing the profane treatise on consciousness was burned,
while a livid picture was drawn of my own future if I persisted in
stealing forbidden fruit from this particular tree of knowledge.

But your last letter put me into a more serious frame of mind. And I _am_
complimented that you entertain the hope that I may be of assistance in
re-establishing the lost bond between you and real life. But do you know
that you have appealed to the missionary instincts of a barbarian? The
attributes of patience and indulgence do not belong to natures like mine.
Never has any affliction worked out patience in me, never has my strongest
affection taken the form of indulgence. In me Love and Friendship, Sorrow
and Gladness, take fiercer forms of expression.

But I will not conceal from you the fact that from the first I have felt
in our relationship a curious sensation of magic in one opposed to mystery
in the other. I have felt the abandon and madness of a happy dancer,
whirling around the dim edge of your shadow-land in the wild expectation
of beholding the disembodied spirit of you come forth to join me. It is
not that I _wished_ to work a charm, but the shadow of your mysterious
life draws me into the opposition of a counter-influence. The gift of
power is not in me to set foot across the magic line into the dim land of
your soul, any more than I could dissolve into a breath of moonlit air, or
a wave of the sea. For, in you, I seem to perceive some strange phenomenon
of a spirit changed to twilight gloom which covers all your hills and
valleys with the mournful shadow of approaching night. Often this
conception appalls me, but more frequently I conceive a wild energy from
the idea, as of one sent to rim the shadows in close and closer till some
star shall shine down and bless them into heroic form and substance. And I
have been amazed to find within my mind a witch's charm for working
rainbow miracles upon your dim sky,--but so it is. There have always bee