he idea, in
itself, is beautiful, the knowledge that its realization requires a
pyramid of worn-out creatures, divested of human dignity, renders it
repulsive to me.

"Irma, I feel as if I must impress the testament of my soul upon yours.
The moment you feel that you've lost the smallest portion of your crown
of human dignity, flee, without hatred or contempt; for he who carries
such feelings in his soul is heavily laden and can never breathe
freely. I don't hate the world; neither do I despise it. It simply
appears to me strange, decayed, distant. Nor can I hate or despise any
one, because his belief is different from mine.

"But as I don't wish to teach you, I will go on with my story. I
applied for my discharge and entered the university as a student. I
soon left, however, in order to continue my education in an
agricultural school. After that, I traveled and, as you know, spent an
entire year in America. I had a great desire to become acquainted with
that new phase of history in which men are born to intellectual freedom
and are not constantly looking back toward Palestine, Greece or Rome. I
don't find the world of the future in America. All there is still, as
it were, in a state of ferment suggestive of primeval processes; but
whether a new civilization will be the result, is more than I know. I
do know, however, that all mankind is patiently waiting for a new moral
compact. But I, and many more of us, will never live to see it
realized.

"Will the world of the future be governed by pure ideas, or will it
again look up to some lofty personage as its exemplar? I should wish
for the former, but its realization seems far off.

"Now to continue with the story of my life.

"I returned home and, meeting your mother, was unutterably happy. She
was alone in the world. I have enjoyed the greatest of all happiness;
there is none other like it. Three years after you were born, your
mother died. I cannot give you particulars about her. Her whole
appearance was one of strength and purity. The world regarded her as
cold and reserved, but she was ardent and open-hearted, beautiful to
her very heart, but only for me. I know that if she had been spared to
me, I would have become one of the best and kindest of men. I dare not
think of that.

"It was not to be.

"But I feel as if sanctified through her, for since that time no base
thought has ever entered my soul; nor have I ever committed a deed that
I should feel ashamed