trade as a goose
is to a tailor. Foul fare the grasping taxman who wrings a couple of
guineas from us on the plea that it is a luxury! We can just hold
on, and I would not have him a pound the poorer for me. But you can
understand, Bertie, that it is humiliating for a man of my age to have
to go about without any money in my pocket. It affects me in so many
petty ways. A poor man may do me a kindness, and I have to seem mean in
his eyes. I may want a flower for a girl, and must be content to appear
ungallant. I don't know why I should be ashamed of this, since it is no
fault of mine, and I hope that I don't show it to any one else that I AM
ashamed of it; but to you, my dear Bertie, I don't mind confessing that
it hurts my self-respect terribly.

I have often wondered why some of those writing fellows don't try their
hands at drawing the inner life of a young man from about the age of
puberty until he begins to find his feet a little. Men are very fond
of analysing the feelings of their heroines, which they cannot possibly
know anything about, while they have little to say of the inner
development of their heroes, which is an experience which they have
themselves undergone. I should like to try it myself, but it would need
blending with fiction, and I never had a spark of imagination. But I
have a vivid recollection of what I went through myself. At the time I
thought (as everybody thinks) that it was a unique experience; but since
I have heard the confidences of my father's patients I am convinced that
it is the common lot. The shrinking, horrible shyness, alternating with
occasional absurd fits of audacity which represent the reaction against
it, the longing for close friendship, the agonies over imaginary
slights, the extraordinary sexual doubts, the deadly fears caused by
non-existent diseases, the vague emotion produced by all women, and the
half-frightened thrill by particular ones, the aggressiveness caused
by fear of being afraid, the sudden blacknesses, the profound
self-distrust--I dare bet that you have felt every one of them, Bertie,
just as I have, and that the first lad of eighteen whom you see out of
your window is suffering from them now.

This is all a digression, however, from the fact that I have been six
months at home and am weary of it, and pleased at the new development
of which I shall have to tell you. The practice here, although
unremunerative, is very busy with its three-and-sixpenny visits