me with money and a
complicated address upon my envelopes, or even, by a stretch of
imagination, to that semi-abstract portion of my being some men call
a Higher Self.

To none of these, however, could I honestly or dishonestly ascribe it.
Yet, as in the case of those congratulatory telegrams from our mother
and yourself, I was aware--and this feeling never failed with each
separate occurrence--aware that somebody, other than ourselves
individually or collectively--was pleased.

V

WHAT I have told you so far concerns a growth chiefly of my inner life
that was almost a new birth. My outer life, of event and action, was
sufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from me
during the ten years, broken by three periods of long-leave at home,
I spent in that sinister and afflicted land. This record, however,
deals principally with the essential facts of my life, the inner; the
outer events and actions are of importance only in so far as they
interpret these, since that which a man feels and thinks alone is
real, and thought and feeling, of course, precede all action.

I have told you of the Thrill, of its genesis and development; and I
chose an obvious and rather banal instance, first of all to make
myself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of so
delicate a nature as to render their description extremely difficult.
The point is that the emotion was, for me, a new one. I may honestly
describe it as a birth.

I must now tell you that it first stirred in me some five years after
I left England, and that during those years I had felt nothing but
what most other men feel out here. Whether its sudden birth was due
to the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparation
that had been going forward in me secretly all that time, I cannot
tell. No proof, at any rate, offered itself of either. It came
suddenly. I do know, however, that from its first occurrence it has
strengthened and developed until it has now become a dominating
influence of a distinctly personal kind.

My character has been affected, perhaps improved. You have mentioned
on several occasions that you noted in my letters a new tenderness, a
new kindness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and more
of sympathy, a new love; the "birth of my poetic sense" you also
spoke of once; and I myself have long been aware of a thousand fresh
impulses towards charity and tolerance that had, hitherto, at any
rate, la