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“ THE VEIL GROWS THIN. SINCE our parting I have lived in a place midway between an abyss and a mountain, where the sick and wounded of earth go to be healed, if seeds of health be in them, or if not, to perish. The dead go down into the abyss; those freed from death ascend to their felicity. But for our love, O heart of my soul, I should have chosen death; but because our love could not die I live, and our reunion is near! ”

“ On a spring day, with some chance companion, I sat me down among a multitude in a hall of audience where musicians fiddled and blew: a careless soldier, indifferent to beauty, unconscious as yet of his own soul. But as I sat there immersed in my vain musings, the instruments were hushed and a voice, clear, pure and ravishing, ascended and soared out of the stillness, gathered power magically, shivered deliciously in my heart, rose again to slenderest pinnacles of ecstasy, and tinted the air with tremulous rainbows. ”

“ From my place in the theater I saw you stand, slender and alone, before that mighty audience, while those divine notes hushed them to breathlessness and lifted them to ecstasy. When the last strain had died away, there came a wondering silence: and then an outbreak like storm-waves suddenly thundering upon an entranced shore. Above that enormous tumult I saw your dark eyes sparkle in a smile from your pure face; all the multitude was on its feet, and men were struggling to cast garlands on the stage before you. ”

“ To be free to meet, our meeting must be secret. Silently, step by step, like nymphs and fauns in the forest, we can withdraw, while the world's thoughts are turned elsewhere; but if we shout defiance, we shall be pursued and hunted down. ”

“ Of what is to come for us we know, and need know no more than that, in every thought, emotion and sense we shall be one. But the impulse rushes upon me to recover our beginnings, so that the foundations of our house of happiness may be established, and its symmetry complete. For whatever is immortal has its root in time, and the loveliness of its fulfilment is not comprehended till its source be known. ”

“ To a young man, certain hopes, certain purposes, may appear cogent, which the judgment of later years might rate less high. A man must choose, finally, between personal and public interests; in your case, I might perhaps say, between himself and his country—his love for what concerns himself alone, and that impersonal passion that we call patriotism! ”

“ In years to come, I thought, when we had long rested secure in our felicity, I might relate to you this interview, and we would smile at the wisdom of this world, which, to gain success in life, would leave life itself out of the reckoning. ”

“ Yet I had learned to recognize the sovereignty of art in the artist, who needs to express the gift as the plant its blossom, and if the expression be too strictly or too long withheld, forfeits also something of the vigor and delight of spiritual life. ”

“ Events not yet born in earthly time create currents in the spiritual atmosphere which we sometimes heed, but oftener disregard. Twice, when I had been on my way to you, I had been aware of a tall figure walking near, with heavy eyebrows and bushy, grizzled hair—something foreign in his aspect. ”

“ He may imagine that secrecy and discretion may enable him to follow the one without abandoning the other; but experience of the world proves that things the most secret are often proclaimed from the housetops ”