i do not know what to write, for i've been so occupied with people. i am anxious about my lectures; still unprepared. i cannot naturally reply to many of your points, because i have a retiring feeling, and so shall not reply. indeed, i often think how nice it would be not to speak or write. i am no hand at those nice phrases that people like. of course, that does not alter my real feelings, but chickens are chickens and often think nonsense. i want to forget and forgive all those children and childish acts. let us do it, and try as much as possible to be real brothers, and thus get nearer the truth. and by work we will defeat the enemy of master: by still silently working.

i hope still you will emerge sooner or later all the better and the stronger. i know you will and i do not see you dead by any means. you are less hopeful for yourself than for others. but you have the will and the fire to fight on to the last bone and the last moment. i only wish i could see you all to hearten you up a little more: that is, to talk with you, for you do not need much of the grit....

i often hear from him now. that terrible racket cleared me up. he says that much haste must be avoided. and that i must not let the flood carry me off. he asks me to say to you that you have a natural rapidity that must be guided by yourself and the best way is to wait after a letter and to sleep on a plan. he also says that ... (i am not aware of this, but he must be right), that you have a subtle desire to be the first to make or propose a good plan or act. do not37 let this carry you off, but be slower as to that. it is good advice, i think, for the additional reason that one can now and then take a plan from the head of another.

i see the clans have been gathering. keep it up and see to it as far as possible that partisanship is at a low ebb and that only good, steady loyalty and work are the main motive. and cast no one out of your heart.

i must ask for a calmer motion at this time. it is absolutely necessary.

a word of love to ——? i sent it. i sent many. i not only sent it visible but also the other way. what could i say? i do not know. in what i sent my whole heart was put. does not —— forever stand for me and with me? how can i use words when the fibres of my heart are involved? and what good is my philosophy if, when the actual taking of —— off seemed so near, i indulged in mere words? i cannot do it. if i try, then the words are mere rubbish, lies and unreal, as i am not able to do this, no matter how much others can. our real life is not in words of love or hate or coldness but in the fiery depths of the heart. and in those depths —— is and was. could i say more? no; impossible. and even that is small and badly said.

it is true that day by day the effect of my philosophy is more apparent on me, as yours is and will be on you, and so with us all. i see it myself, let alone all i hear of it from others. what a world and what a life! yet we are born alone and must die alone, except that in the eternal space all are one, and the one reality never dies.

if ambition creeps up slowly higher and higher it will destroy all things, for the foundations will be weak. in the end, the master will win, so let us breathe deep and hold fast there, as we are. and let us hurry nothing. eternity is here all the time. i cannot tell38 you how my heart turns to you all. you know this, but a single word will do it. trust! that was what h. p. b. said. did she not know? who is greater than our old and valiant "old lady"? ah, were she here, what a carnage! wonder, anyhow, how she, or he, or it, looks at the matter? smiling, i suppose, at all our struggles.

again, in storm and shine, in heat and cold, near or afar, among friends or foes, the same in one work.