* * *

Amalia's letter gave me great pleasure. To be sure, I see from its
flattering tone that she does not consider me as an exception to the
men who need flattery. I do not like that at all. It would not be fair
to ask her to recognize my worth in our way. It is enough that there
is one who understands me. In her way she appreciates my worth so
beautifully. I wonder if she knows what adoration is? I doubt it, and
am sorry for her if she does not. Aren't you?

* * * * *

Today in a French book about two lovers I came across the expression:
"They were the universe to each other." It struck me as at once
pathetic and comical, how that thoughtless phrase, put there merely as
a hyperbolical figure of speech, in our case was so literally true.
Still it is also literally true for a French passion of that kind.
They are the universe to each other, because they lose sense for
everything else. Not so with us. Everything we once loved we still
love all the more ardently. The world's meaning has now dawned upon
us. Through me you have learned to know the infinitude of the human
mind, and through you I have come to understand marriage and life, and
the gloriousness of all things.

Everything is animate for me, speaks to me, and everything is holy.
When people love each other as we do, human nature reverts to its
original godliness. The pleasure of the lover's embrace becomes
again--what it is in general--the holiest marvel of Nature. And that
which for others is only something to be rightly ashamed of, becomes
for us, what in and of itself it is, the pure fire of the noblest
potency of life.

* * * * *

There are three things which our child shall certainly have--a great
deal of wanton spirit, a serious face, and a certain amount of
predisposition for art. Everything else I await with quiet
resignation. Son or daughter, as for that I have no special
preference. But about the child's bringing-up I have thought a great,
great deal. We must carefully avoid, I think, what is called
"education;" try harder to avoid it than, say, three sensible fathers
try, by anxious thought, to lace up their progeny from the very cradle
in the bands of narrow morality.

I have made some plans which I think will please you. In doing so I
have carefully considered your ideas. But you must not neglect the
Art! For your daughter, if it should be a daughter, would you pref