Venice, 1st February, 1877

1. I am told that some of my “most intelligent readers” can make nothing of what I related in last Fors, about St. Ursula's messages to me. What is their difficulty? Is it (1), that they do not believe in guardian angels,—or (2), that they do not think me good enough to have so great an angel to guard me,—or (3), that knowing the beginning of her myth, they do not believe in St. Ursula's personality?

If the first, I have nothing more to say;—if the second, I can assure them, they are not more surprised than I was myself;—if the third, they are to remember that all great myths are conditions of slow manifestation to human imperfect intelligence; and that whatever spiritual powers are in true personality appointed to go to and fro in the earth, to trouble the waters of healing, or bear the salutations of peace, can only be revealed, in their reality, by the gradual confirmation in the matured soul of what at first were only its instinctive desires, and figurative perceptions.

2. Oh me! I had so much to tell you in this Fors, if I could but get a minute's peace;—my stories of the Venetian doggie, and others of the greater dog and the lesser dog—in Heaven; and more stories of Little bear in Venice, and of the Greater bear and Lesser bear in Heaven; and more of the horses of St. Mark's, in Venice, and of Pegasus and the chivalry of Heaven;—ever so much more of the selling of melons in Venice, and of the twelve manner of fruits in Heaven for the healing of the nations.