Do you know what it means to be free? Only the self-restrained man is free, for lawlessness is not freedom. Lawlessness is always in leash to passions tyrannical. In the new America that I see just over the edge of the horizon (for my eye reaches farther than yours), there will be room for the fullest development of the individual idea, while the idea of social responsibility will make it stable. Hitherto individuality has run rampant. Witness the hoarding of food by a few, while many go without. Watch the clash and struggle of each interest to take some advantage for itself out of this tragic opportunity. Before the war is ended the hearts of men must work in harness with their minds. The old generation is dying off, the generation whose initiative girdled the continent with railroads, spurred by the hope of personal gain. The new men who will follow the old “captains of industry” will glimpse a new ideal. I am told by one who knows more than I that the men who have made industrial America, by their foresight and initiative, were guided and inspired by Beings who used them and their ambitions for world purposes beyond their comprehension. LETTER XXI A RAMBLING TALK _November 15, 1917._ I AM not in a literary mood to-night, so I may talk in a rambling way. I wonder if you know the seriousness of the enterprise which America has undertaken. You think you do. But before the matter is all threshed out at the end you may have surprises in store. Do not worry about your things in London. London is large, and a good many bombs can fall without destroying any great portion of it. Yes, I say emphatically again what I said some two years and a half ago, that there will be internal troubles in Germany--and in other places, too. The world is going to be made over. Do not be afraid. The making over of the world will not hurt you. Humanity is so afraid of change! The race has gone through many changes--some of them in prehistoric times--more dramatic than the present change. Humanity has a long history, and little of it is recorded in books that you can read. Yes, the world will be united, and the world will be cut up. That sounds like a paradox, perhaps. As I am resting to-night, I may take the liberty of being disconnected. You ought always to live in a quiet place like this, a little remote from the centre of things. You do not belong in the bustle and crowd downtown, either in New York or any other large city. All those who have developed their inner senses should live a little apart. That does not mean that they should all become hermits; but they should live in the outskirts. When you feel a desire for the crowd you can go down into it.