Ideal

( Originally Published 1922 )

YES, dear, do you go on sending me those sweet messages full of praise, and hope, and inspiration, holding always before me the Ideal, keeping me to the plane of my better self. I may not feel that I de-serve a tenth part of your faith in me—no matter, some day I shall be worthy of your praise. And even though I should never reach the summit of your appreciation, still the glory will be yours of having urged me to the endeavor. You are the height and I am the depth; you are the star shining in the Infinite and I the poor vainly aspiring worm on the earth below: yet in some fortunate hour I may be lifted to you.

For we do not make the supreme effort of our souls for the many, but for the few,—nay, oftenest of all, for the One ! When I am at my best, you know well that I am writing for you alone; when I am at my worst, it is because I can not rise to the thought of you. Even so my soul is often silent for days, giving me no message from the Infinite, no hint of its kinship to the stars, no whisper of the life it led before this life and the life it shall lead after this. I sometimes think you are my soul!

But help me—help me always, no matter how often and how far I may fall below your hope of me. Still reach me your kind hand which has power to save me from the last gulf; still say those words of grace and cheer for which I hunger the more, the more that I feel my unworthiness. I will read them over and over until I make myself believe that I really deserve them. Some day, be sure, I will utterly free myself from my baser self and live only for you. I will be your Sir Galahad, and my strength of soul shall be as the strength of ten. I will dedicate every thought to you and I will write for you alone—then must I at last be worthy of your praise in which the few or the many will have no part. I will no longer give out my truth to hire, or shame the Divinity in my breast, or care only to move the laughter of the crowd. I will write a book only for you, and you shall be here, as now, looking over my shoulder as I write, and giving me fresh inspi ration whenever my thought fails. Neither the few nor the many shall see this book—it will be for you and me alone. We shall love it greatly for having written it together and because it will be forever sacred to us two. I have already thought of a title for this book —we shall call it the "Story of a Man who Lost but afterward Found his Soul".

Turn now your dear face to the light—for my lamp wanes and I have sat far into the night—that I may see the look of praise upon it that has cheered so many a task of mine; that I may renew my worn spirit in the eternal peace of those calm eyes.