I do not feel at all sure that you know me truly. What a man's soul appears to be, through the intimations of his higher moments, is not the man altogether that humans must reckon with. Nor must they reckon with the trampling violences of one's past. I truly believe in the soul. I believe it is an essence fundamentally fine; that great mothers brood it beautifully into their babes; that it is nourished by the good a man does and thinks. I believe in the ultimate victory of the soul, against the tough, twisted fibres of flesh which rise to demand a thousand sensations. I would have you think of me as one _lifting_; happy in discoveries, the crown of which you are; conscious of an integrating spirit; that sometimes in my silences I answer your song as one glorified. But then, I remember that you must not judge me by the brightest of my work. Such are the trained, tense bursts of speed--the swift expiration of the best. I think a man is about half as good as his best work and half as bad as his most lamentable leisure. Midway between his emotions and exaltations--is indicated his valuation.... All men clinging to the sweep of the upward cycle, must know the evil multitude at some time. Perhaps few men have met and discarded so many personal devils as I, in a single life. But I say to you as I write to-night, those devils cast out seem far back among cannibal centuries. I worship the fine, the pure,--thoughts and deeds which are expanded and warmed by the soul's breath. And you are the anchorage of this sweeter spirit which is upon me. Now, out of the logic which life burns into the brain, comes this thought: (I set it down only to fortify the citadel of truth in which our momentous relation alone can prosper.) Are there fangs and hackles and claws which I have not yet uncovered? Am I given the present serenity as a resting-time before meeting a more subtle and formidable enemy? Has my vitality miraculously been preserved for some final battle with a champion of champions of the flesh? Is it because the sting is gone from my scar-tissues that I feel so strong and so white to-night? I cannot think this, because I have heard--because I still hear--my Skylark sing.