conduct and his fierce words against myself, could never understand how and why I could thus praise him. I must confess there was a question, now and again, that arose in my mind viz., Would he not take my sincere praise, as a lick-spittling attempt to curry favor with him and close his mouth and hold his pen in their attacks upon me? But I answered that by the assurance that to make his good appear evil-to not appraise it at its true value, when I knew it was rendered with unselfish purpose-would be to sin against my own conscience. Hence I calmly went on and said all the good words about him that my heart called upon me to say, at the same time not hesitating to criticize him when I felt his work needed it.

Then he began to attack me in other ways. When I was engaged to lecture he would write and seek to use his influence to persuade the committees and others to drop me; and when I wrote for an eastern magazine he would immediately write a fiercely condemnatory letter to the editor upon what I had written.

Of course I was indignant, and at times felt that "forbearance had ceased to be a virtue."

Then I began to see what appeared to me to be the Divine purpose of it all. I needed to learn to control myself. Better that I accomplish this than that I gain and retain the approval of the world. From this time on the struggle in my own heart became easy. I was learning the joy of loving my enemy. In

my public lectures I commended the good work he was doing in certain needed lines of conservation and research. People often came to me and (basing their remarks upon what I had said) asked how my friend was. He knowing nothing of my attitude, did not change his. It is doubtful whether he would had he known. On one occasion he called upon my photographer, with whom I had just made a rather lengthy trip to the Grand Canyon. When he was told this, in answer to his question, he replied gruffly: "Bring me a photograph showing him falling off a 2,000-feethigh cliff, and I'll pay you $500 for it."

Poor fellow, I thought, when I was told; his hatred must hurt him awfully when he is willing to pay $500 to know I am dead.

After several years of this I had occasion to write a sketch of his life and literary and other work for a series of articles I was writing on the authors of California for one of the eastern magazines. I knew he was fully entitled to a place in the series, but how was I to approach him? I decided the straightforward and direct was the only course, so I wrote and explained my purpose, stating that his personal feeling for me or mine for him had nothing to do with his place in literature and that, as in the case of other living authors, I had gained my facts from them, so I should like to gain my personal facts about him at first hand. In a characteristic reply he bade me come and see him, which I did. Our interview was satis

factory, the article was written and submitted to him and received his O. K., and in due time was published.

He still feels some of his old bitterness towards me, for I meet with his antagonism now and then, but I think I can truthfully say that all bitterness, anger, thought of retaliation or revenge has long since left my heart. That he has suffered a thousandfold more from his hatred than I have, I am fully assured. His enmity has made me exceedingly careful in what I have written upon the subjects with which he is familiar, hence he has been an unconscious benefactor and guide to me and for that I am thankful. And, within my own heart, there is the feeling that I have substituted-if not love, at least a kindly respect for retaliatory-hatred, sweetness for bitterness, quiet toleration for fierce anger, and that means I have been able again and again to sing when hatred would have inhibited my voice and all desire to sing. Some day, sometime, somewhere, I am assured my enemy will see his mistake and will become my friend, and then, together, we will go Singing through Life with God.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SONGS OF THE OPEN ROADERS

WALT WHITMAN joyously sang:

A-foot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me, leading where'er I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune-I am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing;

Strong and content, I travel the open road.

Men, women, of spirit and power, of courage and love, of faith and resolution, why are you so afraid? Why do you persist in sticking to the old roads, the rutted roads, the worn roads, the beaten paths, the tried trails-though they may all have proven themselves good and beautiful in their way? There are new roads to try-open roads into which to adventure.

Get a move on! Adventure more in life. Determine, will, resolve to get something more out of it. Plan a little and then resolutely carry out your plan, no matter if it does bring you some hardship, and loss of the joy you anticipated. What are you here for? To be a slave? To be tied

down to your past,

or to the thoughts, acts, ideas, and lives of your fathers, and their fathers, and so on back for a score

of generations? Strike out for yourself! Sing your own song. Be your own man, your own woman, tied down to no life but that prompted by the Divine Spirit within you. Obey that, and let all other voices be as nothing to you. We often think that "clairaudiency" is an occult thing, to be attained but by the adept. In one sense it is, for most of us never spiritually listen for the Silent Voice that speaks, not to our outer ear, but to the soul within. You, normally, are more clairaudient than you are able to hear physically, for the real you is spiritual, not a mere skin full of physical sensations and feelings.

Hence let the Spirit guide you as to your own theme of life, then sing it, sing as if all earth needed the arousement of your particular song. And you can sing it only when you dare to go out upon the "open road." It may be that you will seem to go out "alone." Others may endeavor to frighten you with that word "alone," and your own heart may plead against "lonesomeness." But, if you can only realize the Divine Fact, that the Real You-the Spiritual You-is never alone, that God is ever with, and in, it, you will dare and thus reap the joy of your daring.

To me the "open road" is the receptive mind. Life means progress; progress implies change, or, at least, evolution. A "stand-patter" in anything practically says we have attained all there is to attain; we know all there is to know; we have progressed as far as it