It has now come to me, though only by & slow and almost imperceptible
advance, that these stores of apparently unremunerative beauty, this
harvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered--prepare
yourself, please, for an imaginative leap--ore used, are gathered,
are employed. By Whom?

I can only answer: By some one who is pleased; and probably by many
such. How, why, and wherefore--I catch your crowd of questions in
advance--we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answer
of no uncertain kind, I hear within the stillness of a heart that has
learned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before.

Those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives, follow that same
ideal with increasing power and passion afterwards--and for ever.

The shutter of black iron we call Death hides the truth with terror
and resentment; but what if that shutter were, after all,
transparent?

A glorious dream, I hear you cry. Now listen to my answer. It is, for
me, a definite assurance and belief, because--I know.

Long before you have reached this point you will, I know, have reached
also the conclusion (with a sigh) that I am embarked upon some
commonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumous
communication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I would at
once correct the inference, if it has been drawn. You remember our
adventures with the seance-mongers years ago? . . . I have not changed
my view so far as their evidential value is concerned. Be sure of
that.