There was a man who had found much of beauty and power, much of the Burning Desert and certain wonderful touches of the peace of the Hill Country--in his story with a certain woman. She loved him in a way more real than he dreamed. Life had shown him much to scoff at. He had been glad to make the most, merely, of an exquisite playwoman. One day she was down town to meet him, but he left her for a business appointment. That afternoon, about everything he had in a material way was swept from him--much to which his ambition had tied itself for several years. The man was badly rocked. He walked the streets--shocked almost to laughter, to find all that he had held for, and held to, plucked from under.... At length he thought of the woman who waited. The laugh of mockery quickened, because he thought of losing her, too--a worldly-heart who would go with the rest--goods that perish. He knocked at the door where she waited. It was opened swiftly. He did not need to speak.... She seemed above and around him. There was a great still sweetness he had never dreamed of as a man (and could only remember dimly as a child to his mother), arms of tenderness and healing.... He saw that instant in her eyes that nothing of the world ever did nor ever could really separate them. The queerest thing about it all was, that he used a word he never could use before--a word, as he said, that had been so badly worked by the world that it needed a lot of washing before it was fit for him. Yet it came to his lips--_wife_--in a way that showed him also a new meaning to the word _forever_. * * * * * This subject of love and mating is only opened. There is much to say in pages that follow, but now, apropos of nothing, if not this theme, there is a chapter of letters. They somehow contain the spirit of many things I have longed to express. Those to whom they appeal will find the last pages of the book richer because of the insert. * * * * * 24 CHAPTER OF LETTERS I We come up through many slaveries into freedom. It is the end of a considerable road to be able to stand against the morning sun, saying: "I want nothing but to give----" ... To be able to say this without an answering laugh of mockery in the heart, where old King Desire sits with his dogs. To be free--that is to be irresistible. Do you want love? You only spoil it when you stipulate what the return shall be--how the proffering of the return shall be ordered and arranged. The great love is giving; great love is incandescence. One must be radiant to be happy. It is so literally. It is so, fold within fold.... One sees gold, looking up from below, and its attraction becomes eminent among all desires for the time. We pass it by and look down, as the spirit of man should look down upon gold, and it becomes a mineral merely. You can enjoy it as you enjoy other people's roses. It bestows itself. Others seek to bestow it upon you.