special messenger arrived with a
letter for him. It was written in blue ink and was from the queen.
Gunther opened it and read as follows:

"... _April 5th_.

"Your letter seems laden with fresh mountain breezes. If I were not
afraid lest you might deem it inconsistent with the dignity of the
subject, I should request you to give me the summary of your philosophy
of life, in an epistolary form. What cannot be given in that way, has
not yet acquired communicable shape. In a letter we have the effect of
the personal presence of the writer. And believe me, for I know of what
I speak, you cannot imagine how much your ideas lose in impressiveness,
when you thus, as it were, put them away from yourself and cause It to
seem that another might have said the self-same thing. A letter has a
voice of its own, and, while I write, I am reminded that your friend
Horace wrote letters in verse and that the apostles also availed
themselves of the epistolary form.

"Your remark that the myriad forms of life which you have from time to
time beheld, now throng about your bark as if it were Charon's, has
made me quite uncomfortable. I cannot imagine that you are only leading
us into the realms of darkness. The problem before you is the knowledge
of life. I must have misunderstood your meaning. I suppose that you are
treating each group or epoch as if it were an individual, and that,
with delicate touch, you note its every pulsation.

"It is quite charming to think that you can even find place for my
modest doings in the grand march of human development. I am well aware
that my interest in beneficent institutions is episodical and
incomplete; and yet my whole heart is enlisted in their behalf. And
this I owe to you. We know how small and imperfect our life is, but we
must aim at greatness and perfection, and can best contribute to it by
faithfully discharging the small duties that lay near at hand. Working
for others rescues one from introspection, and thus expands the mind.
When busied with self-contemplation, we are apt to put either too
flattering, or too disparaging an estimate upon ourselves. It is only
by what we are able to accomplish that we can really measure our value.
I often ask myself whether I should ever have realized all this, if I
had remained possessed of perfect happiness. My bent lay in another
direction. I had a taste, and perhaps some talent, for the cultivation
of t