Intimate thoughts and
reflections concerning our destiny and our deepest emotions, we are
and must be alone. Anyhow, in so far as these matters are concerned, I
never had nor desired a confidant. In this connection I recall the
last words spoken to me by my younger brother, the being I loved best
on earth at that time and the one I had been more intimate with than
with any other person I have ever known. This was after the dark days
and years had been overpass, when I had had long periods of fairly
good health and had known happiness in the solitary places I loved to
haunt, communing with wild nature, with wild birds for company.
He was with me in the ship in which I had taken my passage "home," as
I insisted on calling England, to his amusement, and when we had
grasped hands for the last time and had said our last good-bye, he
added this one more last word: "Of all the people I have ever known
you are the only one I don't know."
It was a word, I imagine, never spoken by a mother of a loved son, her
insight, born of her exceeding love, being so much greater than that
of the closest friend and brother.
