I took it to the window, and, by the half-light of evening, read: If God were pleased to satisfy My every whim, I'd tell you just the little things I'd ask of Him: A little love--a little love, and that comes first of all, And then a chance, and more than one, to raise up them that fall; Enough, not overmuch, to spend; And discourse that would charm me With one familiar friend; A little music, and, perhaps, a song or two to sing; And I would ask of God above to grant one other thing: Before old Death can grimly smile And take me unawares, A little time to rest awhile, To think, and say my prayers. "Gad!" I said. "You're a poet." I liked the little trifle, not least because I suspected that the "one familiar friend" was myself. Everyone likes to be mentioned in a poem. Doe beamed with pleasure that I had not spoken harshly of his off-spring. "Glad you like it," he said. "There's this," I suggested, "you talk about only wanting 'these little things' out of life. But it seems to me that you want quite a lot." "A lot! By Jove, Ray," cried Doe excitedly, "it's only when I'm in my unworldly moods that I want so little as that. In my worse moments--that's nine-tenths of the day--I want yards more: Fame and Flattery and Power." "Funny. Once, outside the baths, I had a sort of longing to--" "Ray, I only tell _you_ these things," interrupted Doe, now worked up, "but often I feel I've something in me that must come out--something strong--something forceful." "I don't think I ever felt quite like that," said I, ruminating. "But I did once feel outside the baths--" "The trouble is," Doe carried on, "that this something in me isn't pure. It's mixed up with the desire for glory. When I told Radley I'd like to be a leader of the people, I knew that one-third was a real desire for their good, and two-thirds a desire for my own glory." "Yes, but I was going to tell you that once--" "And I wish it were a pure force. I'd love to pursue an Ideal for its own sake, and without any thought for my own glory. I wonder if I shall ever do a really perfect thing." "I was going to tell you," I persisted; and, though I knew he measured my temperament as far inferior to Edgar Doe's artistic soul, and would rather have continued his own revelations, yet must I interrupt by telling him of my one moment of aspiration and yearning. Perhaps, I, too, wanted to pour out my mind's little adventures. We're all the same, and like a heart-to-heart talk, so long as it is about ourselves. I told him, accordingly, of that strange evening outside the baths, when I had felt so overpowering an aspiration towards a vague ideal--an ideal that could not be grasped or seen, but was somehow both great and good. Sec.4