"Thank you--for all that you have done, and most of all for all that you have been. My idea is all comprehended in this: To the very uttermost of my power, I am going to make it right for Karl." Six months later she wrote him this: "Dear Doctor: Thank you for attending to those things for me. It infuriated me at first to think that the only thing in money left by the work of Karl's great life was the money from those books which I resented so bitterly. But how wrong to see it that way--for Karl would be so happy to know that the brave work he did after his blindness was helping me now. But I never spend a dollar of this money without thinking of the mood--the circumstances--out of which it was earned. "No--no money for the work he did for the blind. Karl intended that as a gift. He would be so glad to know of its usefulness. He thought it all wrong that books for the blind were so expensive, and so many of the great things not to be had. "Karl used to repeat a little verse of Heine, which he translated like this:" 'At first I did not even hope, And to a hostile fate did bow-- But I learned to bear the burden-- Only do not ask me how.' "I have learned to bear it here in Paris--only do not ask me how. I could not say. I do not know. "But I want to tell you of a few of the good things. You would not believe what that work in the laboratory has done for me. It has given me a new understanding of colour--new sense of it, new power with eye and hand, a better sense of values. Would you have thought of that? And do you not see the reasons for my being glad? "What I have done so far is but leading up to what I am going to do. That is so vital that it must not be done too quickly. I must get my hand in, gain what there is to be gained here, that the work I am going to do for Karl may have the benefit of it all. But I have made innumerable sketches, and it is growing all the time. There need be no fear of my losing it. I could no more lose it than I could lose my own soul. It grows as I grow. Sometimes I think I should wait ten years--but I shall not. "Yes, the critics like the picture of which you speak. Of course I am painting all the time--other things--various things. But it all seems like practice work to me--a mere getting ready." And then, after a long time, this:--"This is my birthday;--a day linked more closely than I could ever tell with Karl, our life and work and love. If I had looked forward from one happy birthday I had and seen what was ahead--how it would be with me now--I never could have gone on. We go on by not knowing what is waiting for us, and day by day we bear what we would have said, looking ahead, we never could endure--and that is human life.