turning of an hour-glass. When I am dead, I wish only my faults to be
chronicled, for these alone have any value for the world. I have
dreamt always of cycles of infinities. As a decimal always tends by
evolution towards a number, so also we evolve toward an infinity. Yet
at that goal another infinity starts, as another infinity starts in
numbers,--the symbol of patience after all.


"Unto the man of yearning thought
And aspiration, to do nought
Is in itself almost an act,--
Being chasm-fire and cataract
Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd.
Yet woe to thee if once thou yield
Unto the act of doing nought!"

Read Hello and Elia. I am learning how to see in crowds. These past
few days I have succeeded in withdrawing into life for long periods in
the midst of a general conversation, yet my absence was not noted in
the least. Out of it I hope will develop the ability to be with life
always in the tangle and confusion of city circumstance. This
afternoon I read _Phaedrus_ aloud on a sunny cliff, and in the evening
read aloud Keats' "I stood tiptoe" on the green heights in the wind
and the rain. Rossetti's lines do not forbid a life of contemplation,
but rather encourage it as distinguished from quietism. ... Through
the summer I am to see the Crucifixion. How I envy St. Francis the
Stigmata! Even as a little boy I desired them--but I shall never be
able perhaps to love passionately enough. The nights that I cried as a
little fellow without knowing why, just because I loved, were nearer
than I shall ever be again.