moulded something; life will have justified itself to me, or I to life.
But that is not our problem to-day.

Why do I isolate myself? Because a few pursuits in life are great
taskmasters and jealous ones. A wise man who had felt that truth wrote
about it once. I must husband my devotions: love, except the idea of love,
is not for me; pleasure, except the idea of pleasure, is too keen for me;
energy, except the ideas energy creates, is beyond me. I am limited,
definite, alone, without you.

I confess that two passions are greater than any man, the passion for God
and the passion of a great love. They send a man hungry and naked into the
street, and make his subterfuges with existence ridiculous. How rarely
they come! How inadequate the man who is mistaken about them! We peer into
the corners of life after them, but they elude us. There are days of
splendid consciousness, and we think we have them--then----

No, it is foolish, _bete_, dear lady, to be deceived by a sentiment;
better the comfortable activities of the world. They will suit you best;
leave the other for the dream hidden in a glass of champagne.

But let me love you always. Let me fancy you, when I walk down these
gleaming boulevards in the silent evenings, as you sit flashingly lovely
by some soft lamplight, wrapped about in the cotton-wools of society. That
will reconcile me to the roar of these noonday streets. The city exists
for _you_.



NO. XI. UNSATISFIED.