I assured that there may be
but one way, and that, the way of service.

I did not grip her passionately in my arms. I withdrew; I did much to
make her task of leaving me an easy one. Were it not for my efforts, it
would have been harder for her to obey a mandate which made for my pain.
She could not quite drown an old, Puritan voice, speaking with the
authority of tradition, which bade her hold to her vows. Yes, I made it
easy for her. Harrow my soul with theories of selection and survival if
you dare!

In those days the spires of the temple were golden, the shrine white.
The door was seen from every point in the fog-begirt world. We who
worshipped knew not of doubt. Stirred by the rumbling organ tones of
causes and ideas, we immolated our lives gladly. High priests of
thought, we swung the censers and rose on the breast of the incense.
Ellen and John and myself glorified God and enjoyed Him forever,--God,
the Type, the Final Humanity, the giant Body Soul of man. In our hearts
dwelt a religion which compelled us to serve the ideal. We strove to
become what organically we felt the "Human with his drippings of warm
tears" may become. We were the standard-bearers of the advancing margin
of the world. We were the high-water mark toward which all the tides
forever make. We were soldiers and priests.

And so when Ellen loved, and lacked courage for her love, I helped her.
A past of kindness and ardour riveted her to my side. She knew that we
were in feeling and fact divorced from each other by virtue of her
stronger love for John, yet did she do battle with the rich young love.
For two years we had been close; she had been so much my friend, she
could not in maiden charity seal for me a so unwelcome fate. I had
awakened her slumbering soul with my first look into the sphinx wonder
of her eyes. For me she had become fire and dew, flame of the sun, and
flower of the hill. Without me to help her do it she could not leave me.

To the master of matter this coping with spiritual abstractions must
appear like juggling with intellectual phantasmagoria. Yet I protest
that life is finally for intangible triumphs. Unnamed fragrances steal
upon the senses and the soul revels and greatens. Unseen hands draw us
to worlds afar, and we are gathered up in the dignity of the human
spirit. Unknown ideas attract and hold us, and we take our place in the
universe as intellectual factors. In giving up Ellen I helped her, and,
sacredly better s