Fillmore Flagg accepted this demonstration of the combined ability of the farm people to conquer the most difficult problems of science, without the advantage of previous training, as an added proof that the ideas and methods of the model farm were most assuredly in conjunctive harmony with planetary evolution; therefore with the great force of combined co-operative mental effort to push it forward, still more surprising results might reasonably be expected, when these efforts were more wisely and skillfully directed along lines indicated by nature as lines of the least possible resistance. A realization of these expectations would seem to suggest that the key to future success in all educational work lies in discovering systems, methods, associations and surroundings for the students, which are nearest in conjunctive harmony with natural evolution, consequently along a pathway presenting the fewest possible obstacles.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A TWENTIETH CENTURY LOVE LETTER.
"All the world loves a lover!" is a trite but beautiful saying, which touches a responsive chord in the great heart of humanity! We cannot remain indifferent to the magnetic effect of the strong tide of his eloquent and impetuous wooing. Nor can we withhold a sympathetic desire to aid him in reaching the goal of success—to win the precious prize. Quite as naturally, we are intensely and delightfully interested in the birth, the unfoldment, and the blossoming of every individual entity in the great ocean of cosmic life. Instinctively we recognize that love is life. One could not exist without the other. Old and young alike understand the potency of the spell which binds the lover; which holds him for unconscious periods of time, absorbed in dreamy contemplation of his ecstatic devotion to the heroic virtues, graces, accomplishments and attributes of the charming woman, whom his heart has chosen to represent all things in the universe which have meaning and worth for him. Through this adorable woman, the crowned and glorified object of his all-absorbing love, he can best respond to the rythmic throbbing of all cosmic life. In this superior state of beautiful transfiguration, he forgets self, and lives for long happy months in the rare upper strata of real unselfishness. Under the powerful influence of pure love, the highest and holiest emotion which stirs, controls and makes better the life of every mortal; lost in the blissful alembic of this great chemical change, the lover recognizes himself in every demonstration of universal life around him. He also becomes aware, from some inner consciousness, of the extent to which the emotional nature controls and molds the individual; that among the anabolic emotions, love is the queen of the emotional empire; that the touch of her magical scepter is so potent and penetrating as to render the individual receptive and responsive to all of the ennobling, purifying, progressive and exalting elements of the universe: but, on the other hand, what is still more marvelous: that the same touch renders the individual negative to the inflowing currents from all of the baser elements. With this awareness comes the conviction that the Empire of Love is boundless and limitless; that it permeates and glorifies the vast ocean of infinity! On the strong, swift tide of this shoreless ocean, the lover floats, secure, serene and confident, on his voyage toward destiny's most distant port.
The following letter from Fillmore Flagg to Fern Fenwick, will serve in some measure to illustrate the power of love to change, expand, energize and spiritualize the entire character of the lover: to purify and strengthen the moral disposition of our hero, to eliminate from it all tendency to selfishness; to endow him with a broader wisdom, with higher and nobler aspirations of life; to fit him more perfectly to carry forward his great work for humanity at Solaris Farm.
* * * * *
"My Darling Fern: Noblest, purest and most beautiful of women! Like the rose to the sunlight, like the needle to the pole, my heart turns in adoration to you. My own true love! My peerless one! My guiding star in love's azure sky! My soul swells and sings with its full tide of joy, as willing fingers attempt to put in words the thoughts born of my great love for you. What miracle have you wrought for me, my precious one, that I am so happy? The earth, the sky, the verdant woods, the grand mountains, the green meadows, the shady nooks, the babbling brooks;—all thrill my innermost being with a thousand new charms! The bees, the birds, the flowers and trees as they bend or sigh to the passing breeze; the solemn stillness of majestic night; the deep blue sea, overarched by nature's matchless crown of diamonds, a countless multitude of brilliant stars, in the silvery moonlight of love—how eloquent their song! All things in nature speak to me; they bless you for loving me! In the halo of that blessing, as I think of you, I am transfigured by a newly-born ecstacy! To breathe, to exist, is to realize the superlative degree of my exquisite happiness! Hidden away from the clouds and storms of life, by the golden mist which veils the measureless sea of love, infinite love, I sail serene and confident upon its heaving tide. Gently rocked by the lapping lullaby of the rythmical waves of paradise, I fearlessly float. I care not for time nor tide, nor distant port of a future destiny! Entranced by the music of love's beautiful sea, I dream love's dream alone with myself, the outer world shut away—swallowed up by the overwhelming tide of my sweet and blissful contentment.
"From such hours of exaltation, I am sometimes rudely awakened by a monster reflex wave of self-examination. Ah, dear heart! It is then that I ask of my soul: What am I? What have I done? What sweet guardian spirit guides my life, that I should be made so exceedingly happy by the priceless love of such a beautiful woman? Am I worthy of such a blessing? Can I properly appreciate the great good fortune of being fondly and truly loved by such a peerless woman, who is so dear to me, so noble, so good, so true; so pure, so bright, so beautiful; so truly wise, so eloquent; in every way so well fitted by birth, wealth, and education to reign as queen in the most brilliant and most exclusive circles of the social world; even in the grandly beautiful city of Washington, where the princes and potentates of the earth, lords of other lands, of wealth and fashion of high degree, vie with each other and with the republic's most honored statesmen, for one smile, one look of recognition from this marvelous woman, who is everywhere recognized as the dominant center of attraction? Oh, the wonder of it! This is she who holds the key to my heart!
"Ah, my adored one! As this picture of your life fills my mind, I wonder what would happen to me under such circumstances, with any other woman in your place. I know I should be both furiously jealous and foolishly despondent: but with you, the very apotheosis of truth and honesty!—Impossible! It could not be: so base a thought would perish with the thinking! I know you are as true as steel. The pure soul which shines from your eyes has spoken to mine. I am content; I fear not; I know that the compass of your love is constancy.