of first love--but it is Bentley's not his own:
he was as much excited about a girl Bentley had fallen in love with
as if he had fallen in love with her himself. And where a London
street has a special significance one discovers it is because of a
memory of Bentley's. To Bentley then, with whom all was shared,
Gilbert wrote, when through friendship and the goodness of things he
had come out again into the daylight. The second thought that had
saved him had largely grown out of the first. The J.D.C. meant
friendship. Friendship meant the highest of all good things and all
good things called for gratitude. As he gave thanks he drew near to
God.

Dunedin Lodge
Forth Street
North Berwick.
(undated, but probably Long Vac., 1894.)

Your letter was most welcome: in which, however, it does not differ
widely from most of your letters. I read somewhere in some fatuous
Complete Letter-writer or something, that it is correct to imitate
the order of subjects, etc. observed by your correspondent. In
obedience to this rule of breeding I will hurriedly remark that my
holiday has been nice enough in itself; we walk about; lie on the
sand; go and swim in the sea when it generally rains; and the
combination gets in our mouths and we say the name of the Professor
in the "Water Babies." Inwardly speaking, I have had a funny time. A
meaningless fit of depression, taking the form of certain absurd
psychological worries came upon me, and instead of dismissing it and
talking to people, I had it out and went very far into the abysses,
indeed. The result was that I found that things when examined,
necessarily _spelt_ such a mystically satisfactory state of things,
that without getting back to earth, I saw lots that made me certain
it is all right. The vision is fading into common day now, and I am
glad. The frame of mind was the reverse of gloomy, but it would not
do for long. It is embarrassing, talking with God face to face, as a
man speaketh to his friend.

And in another letter:

A cosmos one day being rebuked by a pessimist replied, "How can you
who revile me consent to speak by my machinery? Permit me to reduce
you to nothingness and then we will discuss the matter." Moral. You
should not look a gift universe in the mouth.

Another powerful influence in the direction of mental health was the
discovery of Walt Whitman's poetry. "I shall never forget," Lu