The Things He Wrote to Her

not know. It is waiting for me and it is good, but the spirit of haste is not in me?with deliberate joy I delay the hour of perusal and plan the details of the event as a bride plans her wedding, for I have learned that reading, in its best estate, is a sacrament of the mind, to be celebrated devoutly and preceded by expectancy and fasting. The author of this book has written other books which have helped to lay the rails on which my thinking travels, and hence I am in some measure prepared for this further reach into the Great Land. He is a man who has lived the Life, and consequently stands white and lone and courageous, not at the summit but near it, with uplifted eyes. When he writes, the comparatively small number of men and women who are qualified and ready put their eyes upon his page with held breath, and then go back to their toil as those who have seen a vision whose glories they would fain transcribe in the varied terms of daily life and duty. Twice have I seen this man, once in the thronged street of the city and once at the window of the cottage which will one day be a shrine for those later generations who will see his work in proper perspective, hew his likeness in stone, enthrone it in the public square, and scramble to touch the pen with which he wrought. When I saw him his brow was un- reddened by the press of any crown, his hands were without jewels, and his shoes of the common leathern so but I knew the royal blood was in his veins an...