"I just want to express a sixty-first second sort of a hope that you won't lose interest in The Dispatch. But even as I write, I know that you, being quite human, in all probability will. Strangely enough I have a feeling that Roger will be more likely to carry it through than you will. Men can play baseball all their lives, when six weeks of crusading is more than plenty. He'll go through with it because it's a sporting proposition.
"But you—well, I guess one has to starve before he becomes a real revolutionary. You'll have to pay the price the gods demand for a full stomach, by being a trimmer all your days. That doesn't mean you won't do big things. You will, and The Dispatch will be only one of them. But you won't do them quite as I—being more or less insane—would have you do them. Still, if you were poor, and therefore understood life as I understand it, you couldn't do anything at all. So I'm satisfied.
"This is all queer stuff and hard to understand. But remember, to the natural eccentricities of my nature are added the hallucinations of approaching dissolution.
"Keep on with the paper as long as you can, and as bravely as you can. Don't yield to the discouragement which will always be just over your shoulder, because it accomplishes little. Never forget that you're only a link in a chain. If you keep your link sound you've done about all you can do. To you life is long, and the world putty in your hands. But after all, you're only an atom on the everlasting shore.
"The Dispatch is the paper of Truth. All reformers—most hypocrites—sing the same song. It seems the easiest thing in the world to tell the truth. But I know there is nothing harder. And it's not because truth frequently clashes with the human side of our lives—though God knows that is hard enough—but because no one knows what truth is.
"It's a struggle worthy of fine souls to tell the truth. But it's a far greater struggle to know what the truth is.
"It is that struggle, being the only precious thing I have, that I bequeath to you.
"There is nothing more to say, I guess, save to wish you well. You will doubtless marry the dominie. I used to hate him, very largely for that fact. But now, as I lie here, on a cool, high mountain, far from the blinding heat of passion (that's a good line, don't you think?) things look differently. When he stood between you and me, he cast a monstrous shadow. Now I see him for what he is. He's just a fellow-traveller on the road I have tried to walk—on your side of it. May God give you both all that I would have him give me.
"As my final request (this has been full of 'final requests,' hasn't it!) I ask that you forget me as promptly and as thoroughly as you can. My rôle in your life has been played. Let me get off the stage now, and stay off for keeps.
"Forget me—the Fool. Remember, please, only the things I groped for—the Angel. Good-bye."