Yet, except that I miss the Tower Rooms, and miss, too, the great
happiness I found in pursuing our friendship at close range, I should
have no reason here either for discomfort or lack of content--if I feel
the world somewhat barren, it is not because of what I have found, but
because of what I have brought with me.
I like to think of you in the Tower Rooms. You always belonged there,
and I felt like a usurper when I came and discovered that all of your
rosy belongings had been moved down-stairs and my staid and stiff
things were in their place. It is queer, isn't it, the difference in
the atmosphere made by a man and by a woman. A man dares not surround
himself with pale and pretty colors and delicate and dainty things,
lest he be called effeminate--perhaps that's why men take women into
their lives, so that they may have the things which they crave without
having their masculinity questioned.
Yet the atmosphere which seems to fit you best is not merely one of
rosiness and prettiness; it is rather that of sunshine and
out-of-doors. When you talk or write to me I have the sensation of
being swept on and on by your enthusiasms--I seem to fly on strong
wings--the quotation which you gave is the utterance of some one else,
but you unerringly selected, and passed it on to me, and so in a sense
made it your own. I am going to copy it and illumine it, and keep it
where I can see it at all times.
I find that I do not travel as fast as you toward my future. I have
shut myself up for many years. I have been so sure that all the wine
of life was spilled, that the path ahead of me was dreary, that I
cannot see myself at all with trumpets blowing, with flags flying and
the rest of it. Perhaps I shall some day--and at least I shall try,
and in the trying there will be something gained. Some day, perhaps, I
shall reach the upper air where you soar--perhaps I shall "mount as an
eagle."
Your message----! Dear child--do you know how sweet you are? I don't
know all the verses--but that one I do know. Yet I had let myself
forget, and you brought it back to me with all its strong assurance.
Your decision that it was best to tell what there is to tell, to let
nothing be hidden, is one which I should have made long ago. Only of
late have I realized that concealment brings in its train a thousand
horrors. One lives in fear, dreading that which must inevitably come.
Yet I do not think I must be blamed too much. I was beaten and bruised
by the knowledge of my overthrow. I only wanted to crawl into a hole
and be forgotten.