INTRODUCTION 



The Story of my Heart^ my Autobiography, gives us 

 much he would have us know ; not the events of 

 his life, his actions, nor his fortunes, but the out- 

 pouring of his innermost being ; craving through 

 the years more beauty, a keener perception, a 

 deeper interest. This longing seems to have com- 

 pletely mastered him, and in his strange autobiog- 

 raphy he poured out with what strength and skill 

 he possessed the intensity of his feelings. 



" I was not more than eighteen," he says, " when 

 an inner and esoteric meaning began to come to me 

 from all the visible universe, and indefinable aspira- 

 tions filled me. I found them in the grass fields, 

 under the trees, on the hill-tops, at sunrise, and in the 

 night. There was a deeper meaning everywhere. 

 The sun burned with it ; the broad front of the 

 morning beamed with it; a deep feeling entered 

 me while gazing at the sky in the azure noon, 

 and in the starlit evening. 



" I thought of the earth's firmness ; I felt it bear 

 me up; through the grassy couch there came an 

 influence as if I could feel the great earth speaking 

 to me. I thought of the wandering air; its pureness, 

 which is its beauty ; the air touched me and gave 

 me something of itself. I spoke to the sea, though 

 so far, in my mind I saw it, green at the rim of the 

 earth and blue in deeper ocean ; I desired to have 

 its strength, its mystery and glory." 



