To My Grandmother
Judith Trask Baker
That Staunch New Englander And
Pioneer Universalist
To The Memory Of Whose Courage
And Example I Owe A Debt
Of Eternal Gratitude




A HILLTOP ON THE MARNE

June 3, 1914

Well, the deed is done. I have not wanted to talk with you much about
it until I was here. I know all your objections. You remember that you
did not spare me when, a year ago, I told you that this was my plan. I
realize that you--more active, younger, more interested in life, less
burdened with your past--feel that it is cowardly on my part to seek a
quiet refuge and settle myself into it, to turn my face peacefully to
the exit, feeling that the end is the most interesting event ahead of
me--the one truly interesting experience left to me in this incarnation.

I am not proposing to ask you to see it from my point of view. You
cannot, no matter how willing you are to try. No two people ever see
life from the same angle. There is a law which decrees that two objects