University of Virginia Library

XVII

In his diary which he gave me to read, I was struck by a strange aphorism: "God is my desire."

To-day on returning him the book, I asked him what it meant.

"An unfinished thought," he said, glancing at the page and screwing up his eyes. "I must have wanted to say: God is my desire

to know him. . . . No, not that. . . ." He began to laugh and, rolling up the book into a tube, he put it into the big pocket of his blouse. With God he has very suspicious relations; they sometimes remind me of the relation of "two bears in one den."