A certain timidity held me back. It was so great a matter that I
was afraid to broach it by word of mouth lest I might fail to put it in
just the best way before your mind, and its strangeness might terrify you
before you could be led to consider its reasonableness. But, now that I
am coming home to stay, I should not be able to keep it from you, and it
has seemed to me better to write you in this way, so that you may have
time fully to debate the matter with your own heart before you see me. Do
you remember the last evening that I was at home, my asking you if you
did not sometimes have a sense of Ida's presence? You looked at me as if
you thought I were losing my wits. What did I mean, you asked, by
speaking of her as a living person? But I was not ready to speak, and I
put you off.
"I am going to answer your question now. I am going to tell you how and
why I believe that she is neither lost nor dead, but a living and
immortal spirit. For this, nothing less than this, is my absolute
assurance, the conviction which I ask you to share.
"But stop, let us go back.
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