" and for
that I trust it. I do not conceive myself Man-god, therefore I do not
say to Nature, "Allow me." I cannot be sure that when I say it in the
case of the horse, who obeys like me "dim yearning and vague desires," I
do not sacrifice him to a lust of my own. The lust for owning and
spoiling is hard to cope with. Perhaps a purer time is near, when,
upborne by a sense of the dignity of romance and the sacredness of life,
man will refrain from laying rough hands on his mute brothers.

The romance which is my proof of the good of being does not rest on
passion. The unclean fires that consume the loutish and degenerate are
not of love. You quote instances of the hyperphysical and hysterical.
The feeling that I would have you obey for your soul's sake and without
which you are but half alive, is not the blind passion of an oversexed
sentimentalism. Rousseau was never in love in his life, though to say it
were to accuse him of perjury.

One word more. Do you wish to know why I care? I care because I know you
to be of those who are capable of love. Probably it was one little twist
in your development that has turned you into alien ways of thinking and
living. Yes, and more than for this I care because you are the
fulfilment of a sacred past. You are the son of my sacrifice and your
mother's love.

I care very much indeed. I do not wish you to awake some terrible night
to find that you had ended your romance before you had begun it. I vex
your days and call you dead? It is because I know the life that is by
the grace of God yours, and because I cannot bear to let you coffin it.
Herbert, there is misery when the blood pales, and the tears dry up, and
the flame of the heart sinks, and all that is left is a memory of a
thought--a memory of very long ago when one was young and might have
chosen to live.

I am sorry we darken the days for each other.

Your friend always,

DANE KEMPTON.

XIII

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

LONDON,
3A, QUEEN'S ROAD, CHELSEA, S.W.
February 12, 19--.

Barbara and Earl celebrated their anniversary yesterday. Invitations
were sent out, the guests consisting of Melville and myself.
"Anniversary of what?" we asked. For answer we received inscrutable
smiles. Birthdays are accidents of fate. You may regret the accident or
you may be thick enough in illusion to rejoice over it, but you cannot
in decency celebrate an occurrence wholly independent of personal
control and yet concerning