On the occasion of our visit she showed me a package of letters tied with white satin ribbon; "Glen's letters," she said; "he wrote me one every day I was in Reno and they are the most beautiful letters ever written." I read some of them and I agreed with her; I wish she would allow me to publish them: it would make a good world better for having read them. "Nor has earth, nor Heaven nor Hell any bars through which love cannot burst its way toward reunion and completeness"….
And yet this queen of matrimonial bliss said to me, "I wish that all mothers would warn their girls against ideals which are not practical. I blame my ideals for years of utter misery; my ideal was a perfect man."
"Someone has said: 'God does not make imperfect things,' and yet can anyone say that he has ever seen a perfect man or a woman? I held on to the shreds of my ideal until there was not a shred left to hang on to; until my heart lay bruised and bleeding on the altar of dead and gone ideals. And then wisdom came and whispered: 'You have been looking for perfection, but there is no such thing on this earth: we must be forbearing and forgiving: 'forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.'
"With wisdom came new ideals that were practical and a new kind of love, indulgent and forgiving, yet self-respecting; a love as strong as the Rock of Ages. Love—a little thing—a sentiment perhaps—and yet without it what would be left of that which we call life….
"There are emotions which make for ambition, for right living, for honor and position, but how pitifully small and inconsequential besides the mighty tomes which, circling the globe, comprise the lexicon of love. Love—the symbol and sequel of birth, the solace of death—the essence of divinity! Frozen indeed is the heart which has never felt its glow; gross and sordid the soul which has never been illumined by its sunshine.
"To live is to love, my friend, and to love is to suffer a little and to be happy much."
PART 4
RENO COMEDIES
According to some of the comic postcards which are sent out, Reno was known in the time of Adam and Eve.
Someone sent me a card while there, which depicted Adam and Eve under the famous apple-tree. (Telephone: 281 Apple.) Eve was beautiful in flowing hair and fig leaf. Adam had one on too, a rather faded affair. Adam was plucking a nice, fat, green fig leaf out of his salad. Under the picture were written the words: "Eve, the next time you put my dress suit in the salad, Reno for me."