After Robert had time to think over the matter, he decided to place "Personal Notices" in all the newspapers of St. Louis and the towns along the line between Texarkana and St. Louis. If no news was heard of Marie by Tuesday evening, he would place it in the papers the next day. He then wrote out the Notice.
Miss Marie Stanton—I found your little note in my pocket on Sunday morning. Have been waiting for you in St. Louis. My faith in you is supreme. It will never change. Months and years cannot change me, no matter what I hear or do not hear or what may happen, I will always have faith in you and love you. Will never need you more than now. Nothing else that I can get, or money that I can make matters or means anything to me without you. Come to me or communicate with me and explain all and I will understand and agree to anything you may desire. Marie, relieve my anxious heart. Let me hear from you. Your father and mother have agreed to withdraw their objections and consent to our being married. I will have faith and wait in St. Louis until I hear something from you.
Robert Gordon,
Address—Planters Hotel.
Robert decided to read and study some before he retired that night. He read the poem, "How to Live," by William Cullen Bryant:
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Robert wished that he might be able that night to lie down to pleasant dreams but he knew that he would lay down with an unfaltering trust in Marie, that he would have the faith in her which would move mountains, that he would never doubt her no matter how long a time passed and would prove that his love for her was supreme and his faith unfaltering.
Robert read another poem on "Perserverance" by Goethe:
PERSEVERANCE
We must not hope to be mowers,
And to gather the ripe gold ears,
Unless we have first been sowers
And watered the furrows with tears.
It is not just as we take it,
This mystical world of ours,
Life's field will yield as we make it
A harvest of thorns or of flowers.
He realized that perhaps all the good things of life do not come to us easily and that we might have to go through sorrows and trouble to try our faith. Robert decided to persevere and try to be philosophic and hope, no matter what happened, and to continue to watch and wait for good news from Marie.