feeding the deer and crane, and drinking in the beauty of it all. I
felt like a disembodied spirit, traveling back, back over the
centuries, into dim forgotten ages. The dead seemed close about me,
yet they brought no gloom, for I too was dead. All afternoon I had
the impression of trying to keep my consciousness from drifting into
oblivion through the gate of this magical dream!

How you would enjoy it all, and read its deeper meaning, which is
hidden from me. But even if I can't philosophize like a certain
blessed old Mate of mine, I can _feel_ until every nerve is a
tingle with the thrill.

Good bye for a little while; I've stolen the time to write you this,
and now it behooves me to hustle.



November 12th, 1901.


It's been a long while between "drinks", but I have been waiting until
I could write a letter minus the groans. The truth is I have hit
bottom good and hard and it is only to-day that I have come to the
surface. When the exhilaration of seeing all the new and strange
sights wore off, I began to sink in a sea of homesickness that
threatened to put an end to the kindergarten business for good and
all.

I worked like mad, and all the time I felt like one of these whizzing
rockets that go rushing through the air and die out in a miserable