Do not spend the rest of your life looking for ghost.  Treasure the time we have together. How is it possible for a creature to resemble God according to one such attribute and not another? Similarly, if the human soul is really simple, how can it lack all the objective distinction and still be like an angel by virtue of its rational powers and unlike the angel by its sentient nature? All agree that it is possible for the human mind to conceive one of these intelligible aspects of a thing apart from another and that both concepts give a partial insight into what is objectively present to the things known. I know you are angry; please do not be. The talk of duty and patriotism aside, how could you really expect me to pass up on this, the ultimate adventure? My mother has been floating around the house, red-eyed and sniffling. My father still is not speaking to me. And yet, I feel as if I am doing something right. We are accustomed to attach great importance to the Universal belief of mankind. It is accepted by us as a convincing argument. That there are gods we infer from the sentiment engrafted in the human mind; nor has any notion ever been found, so far beyond the pale of law and civilization as to deny their existence. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

Sometimes it seems we can navigate discovered whole nations among whom there is to be found no notion of a God. Nobody seemed to want my bravado and impulsivity before. You know this is right for me. I am leaving tomorrow for New York.  When you read this letter, I will be on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic. Even though we get a reduction on our fares if we sail the French Line, Matt and I are bound for England. He has Minna over there waiting for him. And I…I have you. Like knight of the old, neither of us can head off without a token from our love to tuck into our sleeve. I will be landing in Southhampton sometime in the middle of November and will be going up to London. Say that you will meet me this time. I know it is easy for me to ask, far easier than it is for you to leave your sanctuary up on Skye. Do not let me go off to without having touched you for the first time, without having heard your voice say my name. Do not let me go off without a memory of you in my heart. Only in beauty are moderation and harmony essential. The ideally beautiful is an intuitively apparent formal unity which coincides with the natural course of inner activities and likewise with an harmonious co-existence of inner states. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

I am sitting in my hotel room, window open, cool autumn breeze puffing out the lace curtains, with nothing more malevolent glaring at me The Japan Times. Just to lean back, sip a nice latte, and write to you—extravagance itself! You will be quite proud of me, I think. I came clean with my father. You may wonder how I worked up the courage to tell him. He nearly choked on his morning coffee. After dropping a condominium key off at the realtor’s, he met with his friends at Roundtable Pizza, where he bought them what was either a late lunch or an early dinner—“Linner,” and with unlimited pitchers of beer to thank them for their help. They all laughed, but underlying the humor was a depressing truth, and a sense of melancholy pervaded the proceedings after that, no matter how hard they tried to ignore it. After that I went back to the house to spend more time getting to know my niece. There is a spot in the sitting room in the back of the house where the morning sunlight falls through the window just so in the afternoon. My niece and I will sit in that circle of Sunlight and watch each other. When she gets tired of staring at me with those great blue eyes of hers, she will crawl onto my lap and tug on my suspenders, and beg, “Unc’ Ry! P’ease, story?” And how can I resist such a plea? #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

I tell her a fairy story and watch her eyes grow large at the frightening parts and turn up in the corners when she is laughing. It is marvelous to see the raw play of emotions on the face of a child. No trying to conceal any feelings or disguise one emotion as something else. We are going to be great friends, my niece and I, I can already tell. Another bit of news: I have a young lady I have started stepping out with. Lara. She is a real nice lady, she is in college and studying German literature. We met at a party, one of those socially tedious events one is expected to attend on occasion. I went to please my mother. Lara and I met and, after talking, realized that she knew my parents. One of those convoluted acquaintances—you know, where her mother play bridge with my mother’s best friend’s aunt, Vivian, or some such nonsense. Whatever the acquaintance, it means my mother approves of her. So, see, life is going wonderfully for me right now. Two ladies in my life, a house all to myself, and NO MORE DRAMA! #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

Sublimity involves such overpowering might in the object that petty feelings of personal fear vanish from the soul. This self-forgetfulness can occur most easily in the presence of artistic sublimity, for the negative condition necessary for self-forgetfulness is the more or less subconscious feeling of security when confronting superior might. A glimpse of beauty created by man can leave us in a state of long-echoing emotion, mellowing and calming; humor can bring lasting consolation and reconciliation; tragedy can rouse and raise us into a greater life. Wherever the persuasive power of love is allied with the imperative power of the good, a lasting result can appear. However, the supreme and absolute moral function of love is to show that outer and inner, the Earthly and the divine, in their ultimate ground are one. A man’s power is nothing in comparison of that of his maker. There is nothing in life more beautiful than that trancelike quiet dawn which precedes the rising of love in the soul. To be honest, I am not sure what to do next. I suppose there is something very neat and reassuring about having my future planned out by my father. I am gainfully employed. I have myself a job teaching biology and chemistry at a private school. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5