the hurts would be less than the hurt
of being spared those hurts.

"I can hear your friends denouncing me. Hear their withering arguments,
and I'll own that at times they do wither. But, Katie, I just can't seem
to _stay_ withered!

"You're such an upsetting person, dear Katie. To both heart and
philosophy. It's not possible to hate a world that Katie's in. World that
didn't spoil Katie. And if there are many of the _you_--oh no other real
you!--but many who, awakened, can fight as you can fight and love as you
can love--wouldn't it be a joke on us revolutionists if we were cheated
out of our revolution just by the love in the hearts of the Katies?

"Well, nobody would be so happy in that joke as would the defrauded
revolutionists!

"You make me wonder, Katie, if perhaps it isn't less the vision than the
visioning. Less the thing seen than that thing of striving to see. Make
me feel the narrowness in scorning the trying to see just because not
agreeing with the thing seen. Sometimes I have a new vision of the world.
Vision of a world visioning. Of the vision counting less than the
visioning.

"Those moments of glow bear me to you. Persuade me that our visions must
be visioned together.

"Life's all empty without you. The radiance is not there. In these days
light comes only through dreams, and so I dream dreams and see visions.

"Dreams of _us_--visions of the years we'd meet together. And you are
not bowed and broken in those visions, Katie. You're very strong and
buoyant--and always eager for life--and always tender. No, not
_always_ tender. Sometimes fighting! Telling me I don't know what I'm
talking about. It's a splendid picture of Katie fighting--eyes
shining, cheeks red.

"And then at the very height of her scorn, Katie happens to think of
something funny. And she says the something funny in her inimitable
way. Then she laughs, and after her laugh she's tender again, and says
she loves me, though still maintaining I didn't know what I was
talking about!

"And in the visions there are times when Katie is very quiet. So still.
Hushed by the wonder of love. Then Katie's laughing eyes are deep with
mystery, Katie's face seems melted to pure love, and from it shines the
light that makes life noble.

"In these days of a fathomless loneliness I dare not look long upon
that vision.

"Do you ever hear a call, dear heart? A call to a freer country than
any country you have known? Call to a country where the