I should advise you to try an absence of some duration, and to forget Rosalie if you can, since you have not yet declared yourself.

Better a little temporary sorrow than a life of discord.

As you grow older your religion will, in all probability, gain a stronger ascendency over your nature, and the church to which you belong is very tenacious in its hold upon its members.

Rosalie is not of a yielding nature, and as I said before, she is more devoted to her church than most young women of the day.

The physical phases of your love blind you now.  But these phases are only a part of the tie which must bind husband and wife to make love enduring through all of life’s vicissitudes.

There must be mental companionship, and to be a complete union there must be sympathy in spiritual ideas.

The very young do not realize this fact, but it is forced upon the mature.

Marital love is like a tree.  It first roots in the soil of earth, and then lifts its branches to the heavens.  Unless it does so lift its branches it is stunted and deformed, and is not a tree.  Unless it roots in earth it is not a tree, but an air-plant or a cobweb.

You want to be sure the tree you are thinking to make a shelter for your whole life, will have far-reaching and uplifting branches, and will not be merely an earth-bound twig.

Since your church permits no second marriage save by the door of death, do not make a mistake in your first.

Take a year, at least, of absence and separation, and think the matter over.

To Sybyl Marchmont

Concerning Her Determination to Remain Single

It is with genuine regret that I learn of your determination to send my nephew out of your life.  Wilfred is a royal fellow, as that term is employed by us.  He is what a man of royal descent in monarchies rarely proves to be,—­self-reliant, enterprising, industrious, clean, and with high ideals of woman.

Eight years ago I declined a request of his for a loan, and told him my reasons—­that I believed loans were an injury to our friends or relatives.  My letter seemed to arouse all the strength latent in his nature, and he has made a remarkable record for himself since that time.  I have known that he was deeply in love with you for the last two years, and I had hoped you would listen to his plea.  He tells me that you imparted your history to him, and that you say it is your intention to remain single, as you would not like to bring children into the world to suffer from the stigma upon your name.  He has shown me your letter wherein you say, “I am not in fault for having to blush for the sins of my parents; but I would be in fault if my children had to blush for the blemish upon the name of their grandparents.  I do not feel I could meet their questioning eyes when they asked me about my parents.  I can better bear the loss of the personal happiness of a home and a husband’s love.”