Each to his Own Work

Alden Writes to Edith

"HEART'S DEAREST: It was two months ago to-day that you went away, and to me it has been eternity. Every day and every hour I think of you, sometimes with such intense longing that it seems as though the air before me must take shape and yield you to my arms.

"I have been working hard, and--no, I will not say 'trying to forget,' since memory, upon the dull background of my commonplace existence has set one great blazing star. I would not, if I could choose, go back to one hour that did not hold you, but rather would I pray for Time to stand still for us at any one of his jewelled moments upon the dial, when you and I were heart to heart.

"Mysteriously you have made everything right for me, denied all things though we are. After ten years of struggle with the vineyard, with several conspicuous failures and now and then a half-hearted success, I have at last rejoiced Mother's heart--and my own as well--with the largest crop within my memory or hers. The fruit, too, has been finer than ever before.

Drudgery

"The school, also, which I have hated ever since I had it, begins to appear before me in a new light. It is not only those dull and stupid children who are to learn lessons in that one-roomed schoolhouse--it is I. While they struggle with the alphabet and multiplication-table and the spelling of words in four syllables, their teacher has before him invaluable opportunities to acquire patience, self-control, and a sense of justice, if not to inspire affection.