What a wonderful expression, by the way, “being together”! What poetry! Not working together, nor playing together, but simply being. You must often have felt that joy when with a loved friend. Words are not necessary for that enjoyment. Words often lessen the enjoyment by the very effort of uttering them. Effortless being! Even the birds enjoy it, and the rose could give you valuable secrets of that joy. In the world I have heard busybodies say of a beautiful woman that she did nothing. What of it? A rose does not run a sewing-machine, or write books. Joy is coming back to the world. It has been long absent. Being for its own sake has taken on new meanings in the minds of those who are glad to be still alive. To have passed through all the perils of a long war and still to “be” a living man is something to make the soul wonder. The men who have fought in this war from the beginning should not be crowded too hard when at last they can stretch their limbs in the hammocks of peace. They have earned the right. As they spin their soldier yarns, gaze at them with respect. They passed through the shadow of death for you. That God has retained them among the active cells of His body is because He has need of them still; but it does not mean that they should go on working for you every minute. Suppose you work for them for a while. When they are rested they will join you in your labor. Last night I listened to two soldiers talking, and this is what they said to each other: “What will you do, John, when it’s all over?” “I’ll lie in the bath tub an hour every morning, in the warm, soft, soapy water; and in the afternoon I’ll call on one dear girl after another, and drink tea, and listen to their talk. And what will you do?” “Oh, I’ll just look at my wife and hold her hand.” Idle talk, you think? That depends upon what you mean by idle talk. To me that talk was immensely significant. Soon after our little skirmish with Spain I remember hearing an active woman say of her husband that he had never been good for anything since he came back from Cuba. “Well,” I said, “he was good for a lot in Cuba.” The Spanish-American war! A fly beside an elephant, as compared with this war. And the German is tired, too. You may not have to overwork yourself to keep up with him after the war. LETTER XXVI THE AQUARIAN AGE _February 2, 1918._ YOU have wondered why the Masters speak now of the interests of the common man, while in former times they said little about them. But do you not know that when the need for a thing is come, the work of the Masters with the world is to urge the world in the direction of its destiny?