LETTERS FROM ABROAD
such a large area, that, in its field of duty, friends need the most powerful telescope to be distantly visible to one another.
I have often wondered in my mind whether my path is the path of the good. When I came to this world I had nothing but a reed given to me, which was to find its only value in producing music. I left my school, I neglected my work, but I had my reed and I played on it “in mere idle sport.” All along I had my one playmate, who also in his play produced music, among leaves, in rushing water, in silence of stars, in tears and laughter rippling into lights and shadows in the stream of human life. While my companion was this eternal Piper, this Spirit of play, I was nearest to the heart of the world, I knew its mother-tongue, and what I sang was caught up by the chorus of the wind and water and the dance-master of life.
But now came the school-master in the midst of my dream-world and I was foolish enough to accept his guidance. I laid aside my reed, I left my playground, where the Infinite Child is spending his eternity “in mere idle sport.” In a moment I became old and carried the burden of wisdom on my back, hawking truths from door to door. But have I been made to carry this burden, I ask myself over and over again, shouting myself hoarse in this noisy world where everybody is crying up his own wares? Pushing the
