and failure of my life. I have not attracted men's praise—I did not
hope to do that. I have not even attracted their attention. I have
not communicated the least grain of what I feel I _know_.

"Far from looking upon me as a man who at least sees clearer than
others, as having a truth of price which they might be glad to learn,
they look upon me as a man who has failed even to live life upon
their basis, classing me with those utter failures who fail in life
because they have no sense of proportion, because they can not
comprehend the complex issues among which they have to fight.

"And now I am laid aside, a useless weapon; I am not even physically
capable of writing, even if the world would hear me; and I am forced
back upon myself, upon a feeble life, necessarily self-centered, to
nurse and coddle myself as though I was a poor failing dotard, with
one avenue alone—and how precarious!—through which I may perhaps
speak my little message to the world—the education of a child to
carry on my torch.

"I have written to you my whole mind, not because I want you to
reassure me—no, that is impossible; but because I am weak and
miserable. I must unburden myself to some one—must confess that I
have indeed broken down.

"And, further, what is the Death, into whose antechamber I have
already passed? Is it indeed true that, as I have so passionately
denied, I have fallen into the grasp of a power which is waging an
equal war with truth and light and goodness? Shall I be sacrificed to
the struggle, without having made the world a whit better, or richer,
or stronger, with the only memory of me a quiet life with few follies