ary of a great grief, and one of the spirits--mine--just
released from prison. Not that it can stay out of prison forever. It's
too weak, yet, to feel its freedom for long at a time. I've had
horrible hours, ever since that day. I shall have them often, I know,
for the thing I have done has made daily life a torture. But at worst I
can steal away by myself sometimes to read your letters over. They, and
my new thoughts, will be for me the tonic of courage; and so I can go
on from day to day, not looking too far ahead, into the dark.

"If I haven't trespassed upon your time and imposed upon your great
kindness too much already, will you write me little things about the
Mirador and your life there? Will you, if you take photographs, send a
snapshot of the wee house as it is now, and perhaps the silver
fountain, to--Your grateful friend, Barbara Denin?

"P. S. You will think I am very old-fashioned and early Victorian about
my postscripts, and I suppose I am, though I don't remember tacking
many onto other letters, only those to you. This one is just a thought
put into my head by some of the last things you said. It is about the
war, and it came to me in the garden on August 18th.

"In a world war like this, with all its anguish, can it be meant for
the nations, each one that suffers and strives, to develop by and by a
new individuality, a great unselfish, selfless Self? Can it be that the
Power behind the worlds throws this one now into the furnace because
development must come for progress' sake? When the earth was first
created, every least thing that lived fought for itself, and there was
no holding together in a large way, anywhere. When civilizations came,
they brought no real improvement, for politics and greed divided
nations against themselves as well as against each other. Is the true
excuse for creation unity, with all the experience of ages to give it
value? If it is so, and if each nation can attain to unity through
sacrifice and heroism, won't the next thing to follow be the unity of
the whole world? Can this be coming to pass, slowly yet surely, not
only with our grain of sand, but with all the worlds, while the Power
who created watches through the cosmic days you spoke of? It would make
one's own tears of sorrow seem small, if one could believe this; and
yet if we did not grudge the tears, they might count as pearls, poured
into a golden cup, to brim it full of jewels worthy of God's
acceptance.

"Perha