ive her employment she would come and live with me. Once
when she was ill with neurasthenia her friends asked me to go to
the seaside with her, which I did. Here she behaved in an
extraordinary way, becoming violently jealous over me with
another elderly friend of mine who was there. I could hardly
believe my senses and was so astonished and disgusted that I
never went near her again. She also accused me of not being
'loyal' to her; to this day I have no idea what she meant. She
then wrote and asked me what was wrong between us, and I replied
that after the words she had had with me my confidence in her was
at an end. It gave me no particular pang as I had by this time
outgrown the simple gratitude of my childish days and not
replaced it by any stronger feeling. All my life I have had the
profoundest repugnance to having any 'words' with other women.

"I was much less interested in sex matters than other children of
my age. I was altogether less precocious, though I knew more, I
imagine, than other girls. Nevertheless, by the time I was 15
social matters had begun to interest me greatly. It is difficult
to say how this happened, as I was forbidden all books and
newspapers (except in my holidays when I had generally a reading
orgy, though not the books I needed or wanted). I had abundant
opportunities for speculation, but no materials for any
profitable thinking.

"Dreaming was forced upon me. I dreamed fairy-tales by night and
social dreams by day. In the nightdreams, sometimes in the
day-dreams, I was always the prince or the pirate, rescuing
beauty in distress, or killing the unworthy. I had one dream
which I dreamed over and over again and enjoyed and still
sometimes dream. In this I was always hunting and fighting, often
in the dark; there was usually a woman or a princess, whom I
admired, somewhere in the background, but I have never really
seen her. Sometimes I was a stowaway on board ship or an Indian
hunter or a backwoodsman making a log-cabin for my wife or rather
some companion. My daythoughts were not about the women round
about me, or even about the one who was so kind to me; they were
almost impersonal. I went on, at any rate, from myself to what I
thought the really ideal and built up a very beautiful vision of
solid human friendship in which there was everyt