as
lighting up. He felt curiously blazed, as if some flame or electric
power had gone through him and withered his vital tissue. Blazed, as if
some kind of electric flame had run over him and withered him. His brain
felt withered, his mind had only one of its many-sighted eyes left open
and unscorched. So many of the eyes of his mind were scorched now and
sightless.

Yet a restlessness was in his nerves. What should he do? He remembered
he had a letter in his pocket from Sir William Franks. Sir William had
still teased him about his fate and his providence, in which he, Aaron,
was supposed to trust. "I shall be very glad to hear from you, and to
know how your benevolent Providence--or was yours a Fate--has treated
you since we saw you---"

So, Aaron turned away, and walked to the post office. There he took
paper, and sat down at one of the tables in the writing room, and wrote
his answer. It was very strange, writing thus when most of his mind's
eyes were scorched, and it seemed he could hardly see to hold the pen,
to drive it straight across the paper. Yet write he must. And most of
his faculties being quenched or blasted for the moment, he wrote perhaps
his greatest, or his innermost, truth.--"I don't want my Fate or my
Providence to treat me well. I don't want kindness or love. I don't
believe in harmony and people loving one another. I believe in the fight
and in nothing else. I believe in the fight which is in everything. And
if it is a question of women, I believe in the fight of love, even if it
blinds me. And if it is a question of the world, I believe in fighting
it and in having it hate me, even if it breaks my legs. I want the world
to hate me, because I can't bear the thought that it might love me. For
of all things love is the most deadly to me, and especially from such a
repulsive world as I think this is...."

Well, here was a letter for a poor old man to receive. But, in the
dryness of his withered mind, Aaron got it out of himself. When a man
writes a letter to himself, it is a pity to post it to somebody else.
Perhaps the same is true of a book.

His letter written, however, he stamped it and sealed it and put it
in the box. That made it final. Then he turned towards home. One fact
remained unbroken in the debris of his consciousness: that in the town
was Lilly: and that when he needed, he could go to Lilly: also, that
in the world was Lottie, his wife: and that against Lottie, his heart
burned wi