You must love
her, not for anything she can give you. What is more, you can never
know what she will give you: she may even take away. When you see her
you will love her as a bride. Be receptive to her beauty, be always
Eager Heart. When any man receives her into himself there is born in
his soul's house the baby Christ, the most wonderful and transfiguring
spirit that man has yet known upon a strange world.
II
THE STORY OF THE RICH MAN AND THE POOR MAN
On my way to Jerusalem I tramped through a rich residential region
where wealthy Armenians, Turks, and Russians dwelt luxuriously in
beautiful villas looking over the sea. I had been sleeping out,
for the road was high and dry and healthy, but at last, entering a
malarial region, I began to seek shelter more from man than from
Nature.
One cold and cloudy night I came into the village of Ugba and sought
hospitality. There were few houses and fewer lights, and some feeling
of awkwardness, or perhaps simply a stray fancy, prompted me to do an
unusual thing--to beg hospitality at one of the luxurious villas. I
had nearly always gone to the poor man's cottage rather than to the
rich man's mansion, but this night, the opportunity offering, I
appealed to the rich.
I came to the house of a rich man, and as I saw him standing in the
light of a front window I called out to him from a distance.
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