ight lead them where he would
intellectually, it was their task to look after a body that would
otherwise be wholly neglected.

The old religionists used to talk about a man being "a fool for
Christ's sake"--certainly I have been a blithering fool for your
sake. I went to see the doctor, as you requested. He asked me what he
could do for me. I told him I hadn't the least idea, but people
thought my cold had been going on long enough. He said, "I've no
doubt it has." He then, to afford some relief to the idiotic futility
of the situation, wrote me a prescription, which I read on my way up
to business, weeping over the pathetic parts and laughing heartily at
the funny ones. I have since had some of it. It tastes pretty aimless.

I cannot remember for certain whether I mentioned in my letter that
I had had an invitation including yourself, from my Aunt Kate for
this Friday. As you do not refer to it, I expect I didn't--so I wrote
to her giving both our thanks and explaining the state of affairs.
"All is over," I said, "between that lady and myself. Do not name her
to me, lest the hideous word 'Woman' should blind me to the seraphic
word 'Aunt.' My life is a howling waste--but what matter? Ha! Ha!
Ha!" I cannot remember my exact words, of course. . . .

. . . I am a revolting object. My hair is a matted chaos spread all
over the floor, my beard is like a hard broom. My necktie is on the
wrong way up: my bootlaces trail half-way down Fleet St. Why not?
When one's attempts at reformation are "not much believed in" what
other course is open but a contemptuous relapse into liberty?

Your last letter makes me much happier. I put great faith in the
healing power of the great winds and the sun. "Nature," as Walt
Whitman says, "and her primal sanities." Mrs. S . . . , also, is a
primal sanity. It is not, I believe, considered complimentary, in a
common way, to approach an attractive lady and say pleasantly, "You
are thousands of years old." Or, "You seem to me as old as the
mountains." Therefore I do not say it. But I always feel that anyone
beautiful and strong is really old--for the really old things are not
decrepit: decrepit things are dying early. The Roman Empire was
decrepit. A sunrise cloud is old.

So I think there are some people, who even in their youth, seem to
have existed always: they bear the mark of the elementa