Babe, when you need them most, why is it that I am always at a loss for words? If my thoughts of you right now could be put into words so easily, then you would be getting the firmest of epistolary embraces. The disorder in Europe seems to mirror the disorder in my own life First, Erin’s husband is feeling unwell. It did not seem very serious at first, but he has taken quite a long time to recover. Ava’s is staying at my parents’ house now. You can imagine how nervous Ava is about staying in such a large manner. The moment Jamerson felt the least bit feverish, he sent Erin away. I have postponed the wedding. Serena is furious. I told her it was not fitting to go ahead with the festivities, not with Jamerson so unwell. I do not think she believed it was my old reason. Truth is, I do not either. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this just is not my ferry. Though I do not expect her to be content with that. Do they not say bad lucky comes in threes? If Jamerson’s illness is the first, and my canceled wedding the second, then the third has to be that I was asked to not come back to my teaching position next year. They were very polite about it, but, essentially, I was canned. It seems the parents took issue with me bringing in newspapers, telling my students about Donald Tusk, the penguins, and Brexit. Mommy and Daddy did not want their precious darlings to know what a challenging place the World can be. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12

Feelings of empathy and silent tears of sadness overcame me. Here I am, trying to educate, and I get sacked for doing it too well. “Stick to the periodic table,” I was told. And no such luck with “The Fairies’ Twilight Ball.” The magazine sent it back with an impersonal note saying that it did not fit their needs and they “regretfully decline.” I guess Fairies, elves, dragons and all magical folks are not welcomed to celebrate the Autumn. A rejection is a rejection. So, you see, I am failing all around. However, I suppose nothing was ever accomplished without a little perseverance. I will reschedule the wedding, start scanning the want ads again, send out my story to yet another magazine. If I shied away from a bit of a challenge, I would not be “Mort.” I fell off the drainpipe and broke my leg, but, you know, I was up that same drainpipe just a few months after that little event. One of the good things I have got going for me is that I have finally left my parents’ house. Harry rented an apartment after coming back to the States and I have moved in with him. It is like being in England with him all over again. The other good thing in my life is you. I hope things are going better for you now, dear Babe. As for me, I am coming along pretty good, considering what I have been through. I know that I will be able to help people and make some differences in people’s lives, and that is great. I do not really know just how fortunate I am, but in my prayers, I am told to just keep pushing on. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12

It may be safely assumed that no person has ever lived entirely free of suffering and tribulation. Nor has there ever been a period in human history that did not have its full share of turmoil, ruin, and misery. When the pathway of life takes a cruel turn, there is the temptation to think or speak the phrase, “Why me?” Self-incrimination is a common practice, even when we may have had no control over our difficulty. If we were to bring our misfortunes into a common store, so that each person should receive an equal share in the distribution, the majority would be glad to take up their own and depart. However, at times there appears to be no light at the tunnel’s end—no dawn to break the night’s darkness. We feel surrounded by the pain of broken hearts, the disappointment of shattered dreams, and the despair of vanished hopes. We join in uttering the biblical plea, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” We are inclined to view our own personal misfortunes through the distorted prism of pessimism. We feel abandoned, heartbroken, alone. Babe, even though you and I are both going through despair, I offer the assurance of the Psalmist’s words: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Whenever we are inclined to feel burdened down with the blows of life’s fight, let us remember that others have passed the same way, have endured, and then have overcome. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12

We can only go forward be developing our reason, by finding a new harmony, a human one, instead of the prehuman harmony which is irretrievably lost. When we are born free, the human race as well as the individual, is thrown out of a situation which was definite, as definite as the instincts, into a situation which is indefinite, uncertain and open. There is certainty only about the past—and about the future only as far as that it is death. We are gifted with reason; we are life being aware of itself. We are preserving the unity of Being in the variety of beings without prostituting Being to a mere class name—and a name, of course, it must be.  The intuitional sense of values is much like light. Light will penetrate darkness and illumine objects according to the strength of its source and will reveal the below and above of objects according to the position of its source, none of this preventing the objects and the spatial relations from being objective and knowable. This awareness of oneself as a separate entity, the awareness of ones own short life span, of the fact that without one’s will one is born and against one’s will one dies, indicates that sometimes we will die before those who we love, or they before us, the awareness of our aloneness and separateness, of our helplessness before the forced of nature and of society, all this makes our separate, disunited existence an unbearable prison. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12

One would become insane could one not liberate oneself from this prison and reach out, unite oneself in some form or other with people, with the World outside. This is also why we require faith in God. “Faith, hope, and charity bring people unto the Lord,” reports Ether 12.28. Understand the story of Adam and Eve in a Victorian spirit, we are better able to understand the point of the story, which seems to be the following: after man and woman have become aware of themselves and of each other, they are aware of their separateness, and of their difference, inasmuch as they belong to different genders. However, while recognizing their separateness they remain strangers, because they have not yet learned to love each other (as is also made very clear by the fact that Adam defends himself by blaming Eve, rather than by trying to defend her). The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love—is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety. “Without faith among people, God can do no miracle among them,” reports Ether 12.12. The deepest need for humanity, then, is the need to overcome their separateness, to leave the prison of aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can be overcome only by such a radical withdrawal from the World outside, from which one is separated, has disappeared. #RandolphHarris 5 of 12

Last night I sat outside the cottage, watching the Moon rise, notebook and pencil on my lap. The garden smelled like foxglove and honeysuckle, with, of course, the tangy scent of the sea. I stayed out all night. I had my hot tea and my notebook. Who could want for anything more? The night seemed so pregnant, so poignant, one of those Scottish nights that make one understand why some still believe in spirits and wee folk. When I returned home, I propped your picture up on my desk as I started writing to you, Babe. Your description—it did not do you justice. I do not think I need to tell you how lovely you look to me. However, now, having seen your pictures, I can see why your dad thought you looked like a fairy asleep in the garden. If I was not certain you were bigger than my thumb, I should have guessed your dress was fashioned from rose petals and silk. You look quite fey amid the blooms. And your expression is so wistful. What were you thinking of right when the photo was snapped? I did not realize the stories of my antics and asinine exploits were so important to you—“afloat in this sea of chaos”? I never hoped I could achieve more than a hearty chuckle or round of applause for the stunts I pull. I think I have a lot to live up to now, but, as always, I am up to the challenge. If you believe– #RandolphHarris 6 of 12

Since writing the above, something has happened. Harry let Serena into my room to surprise me and she spotted the letter on my desk. She snatched it and read it before I realized what was happening. Serena has called the engagement off for good, in fact tossed the engagement ring—a timeless 2.5 carat Tiffany Novo Cushion Cut diamond—in my wastebasket. She says she fancies I am in love with you and she cannot compete with someone who has been winning all along. This mentality leads to the belief that love can be synthesized in a test tube…one part handholding, two parts conversation, three parts sleeping together, shake vigorously, and let stan for ten minutes—and presto, the distillate will be love! And if love cannot be produced with this formula, then other formulas can be tried. Perhaps love can be produced by Esalen weekends or transcendental meditation, or perhaps it exists in massage parlors, cruise ships, graduate schools, or various scientific institutes. Love must be tactile contact, or it must be some type of transactional I am O.K., You are O.K. type of communication. Or it must be in group participation, in Zweigelt Eiswien, or open marriage, or in primal screaming, or God knows where else. However, the more the human race emerges from these primary bonds, the more it separates itself from the natural World, the more intense becomes the need to find new ways of escaping separateness. If this is what freedom of will is, how can there be such a thing? #RandolphHarris 7 of 12

Union by conformity is not intense nor violent; it is calm, dictated by routine, and for this very reason often is insufficient to pacify the anxiety of separateness. Babe, do you wonder how, as we face today’s problems and concerns, we can continue to day, “All is well”? Many people are living rich, full lives. They have made happy homes for themselves, their families, and friends. They make the World better for their being in it. It is important to do the best we can every day—to look up; to learn; to evaluate resources within themselves, their families, their communities; to pray with faith; to search the scriptures. We must also keep our own lives clean and pure, our relationships true, and forgive those who have cause us hurt. “Now they did not sin ignorantly, for they knew the will of God concerning them,” reports 3 Nephi 6.18. If one of us is not personally living a pure, righteous life, if we have somehow slipped away, we have to repent and come back. Love and hope are real. However, repentance is not a card to sin, ask for forgiveness, and keep repeating the same sins. If we repent and ask for forgiveness, we must truly want it in our hearts and have an honest desire to change. Seeking help early is the best chance for recovery. Pretending there is no problem, covering up for the behaviour, or shielding the person from the consequences of that behaviour will never solve the issue. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12

Babe, after my confession, do you realise how nervous I have been, waiting for your reply? If I were a betting man, I would have put a large wager on you not replying at all. However, the small part of me that saw signs and portents in every letter you sent, the part of me that not only read between the lines but above and below, that part would have put a wager on your writing back and knowing exactly what I was talking about. I am glad that part of me won the bet, for the prize is so much greater. What happens now? If you lived down the street in Chicago, I would ask you out to dinner. Or may not. What does one do with a married woman, apart from leave her alone? See, I am going to make a muddle of this. Whatever “this” is. You have seen how I have been failing at just about everything I have set my mind to these days. A guy with noting going for him but guts. The pleasure you have brought about, the assistance you have offered, the love you have showed and the life you have lived—all these make you more amiable and respectable with every passing year in my heart. Why would you want a guy like me? At times I am a burden to myself. I wish I could let go and cry as a child cries. Although I show self-control, I often do cry inside. That makes it much harder. My tears are dry. Monday to Monday, from morning to evening—all activities are routinized, prefabricated. However, I wake, and for years now, overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12

This experience is first an experience of the power of God, then a quest for the God of truth, and finally an experience of the God of love. The prescribed manner. Even the feelings are prescribed: cheerfulness, tolerance, reliability, ambition, and an ability to get along with everybody without friction. The unity achieved in productive work is not interpersonal; the unity achieved in productive work is not interpersonal; the unity achieved in orgiastic fusion is transitory; the unity achieved by conformity is only pseudo-unity. Hence, they are only partial answers to the problem of existence. The full answer is possessed in the achievement of interpersonal union, of fusion with another person, in love and with a recognition of God. This desire for interpersonal fusion is one of the most powerful striving in a human. It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race together, the clan, the family, society. The failure to achieve it means insanity or destruction—self-destruction or destruction of others. Without love, humanity could not exist for a day. Love is a union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality. Love is an active power in humans; a power which breaks through walls which separate people from their fellow beings, which unites them with others; love makes one overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits one to be oneself, to retain one’s integrity. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12

Here the human and the divine are no longer sundered, and God is seen to be present in the World. When we express love, we experience more of the love that has burned in God’s heart from eternity past. Love is the foundation of our relationship with God, the essence of salvation, and the key to understanding life. Through love and God, we receive regeneration and the divine life with the divine nature, and we grow in life to express God. Love is one of the most important, yet most misunderstood emotions we experience. Human brains are naturally wired for connection with others, and we experience loneliness and rejection as painful treats to survival. We spend our lives craving it, searching for it, and talking about it. Its meaning is felt more than it is clearly expressed. Love is called the greatest virtue. Love is fascinating and complex. Romantic love, in particular, seems to be a beautiful mystery we find it hard to explain. When we meet a person and feel energized and are immediately aware of our heart pounding, it is a powerful moment. Falling in love is associated with increased energy, narrowing of mental focus, sometimes sweaty palms, light-headedness, racing heart, and a lot of beneficial feelings. The human brain supports falling in love, which is why we have such a strong physiological response when we are attracted to another. Once a romantic couple begins to spend time together, they are in a sort of love euphoria. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12

A person newly in love sees the World though the perspective of sheer blissfulness and most everything is tolerable and everything their partner does is a delight. Moving beyond the pain of a failed relationship requires a shift of focus back on one’s self to their own unique ability to give and receive love. The truth is that you have to put in time and energy and make a conscious effort to sustain the relationship and the passion. Healthy relationships require regular communication. Basic communication with your partner on a daily basis is important to continue connecting on an emotional level. Predictability can also dampen desires, so couples should strive to keep a sense of adventure and surprise alive in their relationships. People can make their partners know how much they love them by the little things they do every day. To be romantic is to wake up each day and ask yourself what you can do today to let your lover know they are adored. Have fun in your romance and remember that the effort you put into your romantic relationship, the more love you will receive in return. Be the partner that you seek and live a life filled with passion and romance. Babe, I have a little dream, there is only you and I in it. Your smile and exhortation always in my heart. I have prayed several times the emerging of a miracle: Let me look at your appearance and your voice and tell you my thoughts and we will sing the song of love. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12