You have found a friend who has been so much help and comfort to you. I have such a friend too. To-night I am in the mood to think of that friend and write him a letter like this:

This is to You. It is for You. It is about You. You I have in mind and the good influence you have had on me. It is a happiness and satisfaction to know you, and to bask in the sunshine of you.

The world is better because of you. You have helped to raise the average.

You and your goodness—you do not appreciate what that means. You are so modest, so loath to think of yourself, so thoughtful of others, so unselfish that I must tell you of you and about you.

You have a warm heart that throbs for others' woes and holds sympathy. The great world is cold, selfish, and cares little for others. But you are different; you are a great pillow of rest on which I and others who love you may lay our tired, weary heads, and you wrap your arms of friendship and goodness about us and feel our very heartbeats.

You with your great goodness, your quiet, sympathetic understanding—you soothe our troubled spirits and make us glad of you and glad we have the precious privilege of knowing you.

Even now, as I am telling you how I love you, you are trying to wave me aside and stop me, but I am in the mood and I want to express myself. You know that it is a great sin of omission to refrain from expressing our gratitude for goodness extended to us.

I want to express my gratitude. I do not want to be guilty of the sin of omission.

So here, then, is this little message for you, to tell you that I appreciate you and love you, and these words will last after you are gone and after I am gone, to tell those of to-morrow about you and what those of to-day thought about you.

Your life, your goodness, is an everlasting plant that will flourish in many hearts. Your influence will last beyond the calendar of time; it is indestructible. You have a great credit in the universal bank of good deeds, where you have deposited worth-while acts, deeds, kindnesses, cheer, help, friendship, sympathy, courage, gratitude, and all the most precious jewels of humanity.

I am happy the very moment I think of you. I try to express myself but the feelings and emotions I would describe have not words or sentences to express them. You understand. You are so big in heart, so sensitive in fabric of feeling, so wise in understanding, that I want you to think and feel all the genuine, noble, lovable, appreciative thoughts you can gather together about the one you can most appreciate.

Think hard, sincerely, deeply, about that one, with all your resources of beautiful thought. Think hard that way, and now you will begin to understand my feelings about you, and how I appreciate you.

You, my inspiration, who are so sensitized to feeling, so delicately adjusted to read heart vibrations—you must feel this within me that I am trying to express. Not the love between sweethearts, not the love of kin, not the love of friends, but a great universal love I have for you—a love which all who are fortunate enough to know you have for you.

It is a love you cannot return to me in equal measure, because you have not the object in me that can merit such love. That you should love me in the way I love you even in the smallest measure is satisfaction supreme.

It is glorious to know you. You water the good impulses I have; you encourage all that is noble, elevating, and bettering, in me. I shall try to be like you—that is, so far as I can. You are my model; there is but one You. Many may copy you, none may equal you. You my comfort, you my joy. A great glorious You that a little I am trying to paint a picture of.

How futile my efforts. I might as well try to improve the deep beautiful colors of the morning-glory, or try to retint the lily with a more beautiful white.

And so I bid you good-bye, happy that there is such a one as you in the world—more happy that I know you, and most happy that I know how to appreciate you.

The sum of all good things I can say is, "I love you," and the word "love" I use in its greatest, broadest sense, which covers all the good adjectives.

This is what I think of YOU.