Therefore he sadly errs who on the end has thought,
If to light up the Future’s darksome night he sought.
To grow, to hold our ground, is life’s supreme affair.
No anxious thought of perishing should enter there.
The flower on fading does not think,
The light does not in fear of quenching sink.
God, when he planned the world, upon the end ne’er thought,
For endless did he make the universe he wrought!
He often sent me books from his library, and I wrote down for him my impressions regarding them; and so back and forth went messages, flowers, bonbons, and manuscripts,—a real flirtation! But it was wholly without erotic background; for the gallant diplomat might have been my grandfather.