the impulse to try, and try again.  Result—­a nugget no larger than a mustard seed of intellectual or spiritual radium, y-clept wisdom.  It does not grow on ancestral trees or on college campuses, nor does it come out of laboratories or hospitals, tho’ it is sometimes found in all these places.  A Carpenter is known to have possessed more of it than any other man; tho’ most of us don’t possess enough wisdom to know that He did possess so much of it.  An Indian Prince is also celebrated for the richness of his supply.  These men have been followed by others who sometimes carried mirrors, but some had tiny grains of the real thing also.  And those are called Optimists and Transcendentalists and Idealists and Fools who think that more and more of these grains will come into the hearts and minds of men; while those are called sensible, and shrewd, and sane, who assert that the supply is uniform, stationary in quantity but moved about from time to time, producing nothing but the illusion that something is worth while.

But you and I say, “Suffer the Illusion to come into me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Emerson says each man is an “inlet” of the Divine Spirit—­just a bit on the side, out of the infinite ocean.  Thus all of us are connected up, and thus there is hope that some day doctors will be wiser than today. ...

I should like to hold your hand for a time.  It’s the best service one man can give another.  We are great hand-holders, we men, natural dependents, transfusers of sympathy and understanding and heartening stuff.  They tell me here that your blood for purposes of transfusion is 1, 2, 3 or 4.  The last is common denominator blood and will go into anyone safely, but is uncommon.  All the other three will kill if not put into those of corresponding quality of blood.  Well, you and I like each other because we have the same wave-length to our nerve current, perhaps, and we could hold hands without danger to the other fellow, and possibly with some benefit to the world,—­for human sympathy makes good medicine.

Good fortune betide you!  My brother, who is sitting by, wishes his affectionate regards to go with mine, and he hopes you will some day see him in that vale of Paradise where he lives.

F. K. L.

To Adolph C. Miller Federal Reserve Board

Rochester, Minnesota, May 1, [1921]

May Day, Glad Day, Day of Festival and Frolic,—­once.  Now Day of Portent, of Threats and the Evil Eye.  Such is the miracle worked by Steam Engine, Mechanics, Quick Exchanges, Industry!

With this happy opening let me to your letter in which you love me a little, which I very much like, calling me baby,—­child, anyway.  And so I am.  I laugh at myself.  I cannot think of myself as Grandad or possible Grandad.  In fact, I should not be Grandad or Dad, notwithstanding the beauty and noblemindedness and capacity of my dear kids.  But I have always been a priest, married to things