I struggled long against the mask and domino which muffled words and impeded action, but time and the years have made me more patient. I have grown to see that they may have their uses. The average man shrinks aghast from the naked truth, even when it is beautiful. There is a sort of universal prudery that shrinks from the nude in life as well as in art. Perhaps these universal draperies cover as much that is repulsive as it does of the beautiful. Verestchagin, the Russian painter who was blown up on the Petropalovsk, had three pictures with him when he was in this country that conveyed to me a much needed lesson. He called them "Christ in the Wilderness," "The Sermon on the Mount," and "The Cursing of Jerusalem."--A haggard boy fleeing to the desert for meditation upon the tragedies of existence, for which he is sure there must be some panacea if one could only think it out; the triumphant youth announcing to humanity the solution of all its difficulties; and the disappointed man crying reproachfully to the heedless multitude preferring its own old way--"how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and _ye would not_!" As time cools our cocksureness, more and more is one willing to let the world go its own gait and retire into one's secret life; and there comes at last one day a revelation of the meaning of it all, and this revelation brings peace and poise. The four walls of character and environment are an unescapable prison. Heroic effort will not open a door or break through its blank solidity. One may look out upon the world from one's little room, but there one must live one's appointed time. In youth one does not understand or accept this: then anything seems possible of expansion or change, but _veillesse savait_. Once this is accepted--not by word alone, but mentally grasped and realized--the disordered, confusing bits of existence fall at once into an ordered pattern. Life must be lived in the Little Room. Others may not enter; one's self may not escape. Action falls within its space and can, therefore, be calmly ordered and planned. One will not undertake aught that is impossible within its compass, and struggle, discontent, and confusion are therefore at an end. And within this inviolate enclosure one is safe and private. To those regarding it from without its appearance is much like that of all the other cubicles, but inside, if one chooses, it may be richly hung, sumptuously adorned, with the treasures of one's secret life. Odd, outworn weapons of opinion may give a martial touch to the walls here and there; treasures brought up from the deep may speak of the wild winds of young fancy, and taste yet of the salt of long dried tears. Soft imaginings may invite the weary head, fine embroideries wrought from the many-coloured threads of life may lie beneath the foot. The prison is, should one choose it, a palace.