I can't as yet connect them with anybody I ever met, but to me they are taking the place of a little lunch on the bread of life.

They are such real, such vivid, such alive letters from such a real person that I have been doing the very foolish and romantic thing of answering them as my heart dictates and signing my own name to them, which on the surface looks unwise when the man in the case keeps his identity in the background; but since he knows me and knows my name it seems useless to do anything else: and answer these letters I shall and must; because every one of them is to me a strong light thrown on John Gilman.

Every time one of these letters comes to me I have the feeling that I would like to reach out through space and pick up the man who is writing them and dangle him before Eileen and say to her: "Take HIM.

I dare you to take HIM." And my confidence, Linda, is positively supreme that she could not do it.
You know, between us, Linda, we regarded Eileen as a rare creature, a kind of exotic thing, made to be kept in a glass house with tempered air and warmed water; but as I go about the city and at times amuse myself at concerts and theaters, I am rather dazed to tell you, honey, that the world is chock full of Eileens.

On the streets, in the stores, everywhere I go, sometimes half a dozen times in a day I say to myself: "There goes Eileen." I haven't a doubt that Eileen has a heart, if it has not become so calloused that nobody could ever reach it, and I suspect she has a soul, but the more I see of her kind the more I feel that John Gilman may have to breast rather black water before he finds them.
With dearest love, be sure to remember me to Katherine O'Donovan.