Oh, Diary, I have found him! And I don't know, and care less, whether he is twenty or ninety, fat or thin, married or single! The only thing in all the world which I am sure of at present is that he is mine! For I have him locked up between two vellum doors, from which he shall never escape. He's here--and never in all my life has anyone so thoroughly belonged to me. I've the heart and brains and beautiful spirit of him, and all day long his name makes a happy spot in my conscience. _Richard Warren! Richard Warren!_ I hold the book that he has given to the world between my hands, in reverence. For all that I have hoped, and dreamed, and lived, in my shut-in life; all that I have ever wanted to be; all, that in my secret soul-shrine I have worshipped in God and Nature and Love of Love, is written down here for me to read and make doubly my own. I don't know who or what he is, Diary, in the outside world. And it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but this one little book to which he has set his name. For everything worth while is here; dust of stars and wine of dreams; essence of youth and joy of living, given word-form. And yet, these are not words so much as they are music, and color, and fragrance. I've just been reading and reading, and now I've laid the book aside, and have been lying here idly, letting broken snatches of purest beauty drift through my mind. And, for the first time I find myself regretting the shade of my eyes, for my new companion sings of "grey eyes as pure as God's first dream of stars." But perhaps it's just that grey lends itself more easily to poetry than common or garden brown. Diary, I wonder if I have fallen in love with a book! But what a satisfactory state of heart to be in after all! I can banish my lover with so little effort, if ever I am not in the mood for him! I can even cast him into the fire, if he ever bores me! And I am sure that the most lovelorn maiden on earth must have moments when she would envy that faculty! And when I finally relent, as all true lovers must, how simple it has been made for me to buy a new copy of the Beloved! Good night, "sweet gossip," as the ladies of Shakespeare's time were wont to say. You're such a comfort! And you'll not tell, will you, that Richard Warren and all his words lie once again beneath my pillow? June 21 It's raining. Silver fingers are tapping at my window pane, and father's morning offering of roses came to me with their darling faces all wet and gleaming. I hated the weather _hard_ when I woke up, but in my _Lyric Hour_, which holds so many, many lyric hours for me, there's a little verse about the rain, which patters through my mind as soothingly as the drops outside. So I've become almost reconciled to a dull day, devoid of visitors, and with Sarah complaining of "rheumatics." I shall begin to grumble about them myself soon, for I'm aware of warnings in my spine which bode no good. I'm too tired to write more, Diary. July 1