ull-House classes have not had the necessary experience with comforts.
Renunciation is impossible for them, for they have nothing to give up.

My love to the little goblin boy.

XXII

PHILIP TO JESSICA

MY DEAR JESSICA:

Did ever "Father Confessor" have so sweet and so wilful a sinner to
shrive! Your only sin is that you love me, and do you think I shall grant
absolution for that? As I read your letter with its wayward confession, it
seemed to me indeed that I was in some temple of the gods instead of this
book-littered den, and the rumble of the street was transfigured into the
sound of triumphant music. And all the while the voice of the little
penitent, hidden from my eyes, but almost within reach of my breath,
murmured in my ears: "I love you, I love you, and that is my sin." Dear
girl, when you have given me your heart, do you suppose I shall be slow to
confiscate your will? It is not lawful that a man's, or a woman's, heart
and will should be at enmity with each other. I know that your will is
strong, but I know, too, that your heart is stronger. Why did you turn me
away without one word of hope or consolation when I visited you in
Morningtown? Out of the great store of happiness that God has given you,
could you not spare one little morsel? Ah, I would not offer you up a
sacrifice on the altar of any spiritual creed, but take you with me into
that upper chamber that looks toward the golden sunrise. I would share
your happiness and give you in return a portion in the hope that I too
have found. With you at my side I could walk through the world, (for I am
not such a recluse as you might suppose,) knowing that the desire of all
men's hearts had fallen to me, and that my life was consecrated henceforth
to noble uses. And yet to-day I am very sad.

Let me tell you a little story of the way your admired Simonians act when
their general promulgations of brotherhood are brought to an individual
test. Our proprietor and manager, a smooth-faced, meek-eyed Jew, who has
made himself right with this world, at least, is much concerned with
charities and civic meetings and reform clubs and progress societies and
the preaching of universal democracy, and all that,--a veritable Pharisee
among the humanitarians. He often asks me to give a good word to some
Simoniacal book. Well, I have a poor broken-down Irishman named O'Meara,
who reviews a certain class of publications for me. He is the kind of man
you would never