a sense of gratitude. The doctors and
attendants treated me as a gentleman. Therefore it was not difficult to
prove myself one. My every whim was at least considered with a
politeness which enabled me to accept a denial with a highly sane
equanimity. Aside from mild tonics I took no other medicine than that
most beneficial sort which inheres in kindness. The feeling that,
though a prisoner, I could still command obligations from others led me
to recognize my own reciprocal obligations, and was a constant source
of delight. The doctors, by proving their title to that confidence
which I tentatively gave them upon re-entering the institution, had no
difficulty in convincing me that a temporary curtailment of some
privileges was for my own good. They all evinced a consistent desire to
trust me. In return I trusted them.

XXXI

On leaving the hospital and resuming my travels, I felt sure that any
one of several magazines or newspapers would willingly have had me
conduct my campaign under its nervously commercial auspices; but a
flash-in-the-pan method did not appeal to me. Those noxious growths,
Incompetence, Abuse, and Injustice, had not only to be cut down, but
rooted out. Therefore, I clung to my determination to write a book--an
instrument of attack which, if it cuts and sears at all, does so as
long as the need exists. Inasmuch as I knew that I still had to learn
how to write, I approached my task with deliberation. I planned to do
two things: first, to crystallize my thoughts by discussion--telling
the story of my life whenever in my travels I should meet any person
who inspired my confidence; second, while the subject matter of my book
was shaping itself in my mind, to drill myself by carrying on a
letter-writing campaign. Both these things I did--as certain indulgent
friends who bore the brunt of my spoken and written discourse can
certify. I feared the less to be dubbed a bore, and I hesitated the
less, perhaps, to impose upon good-nature, because of my firm
conviction that one in a position to help the many was himself entitled
to the help of the few.

I wrote scores of letters of great length. I cared little if some of my
friends should conclude that I had been born a century too late; for,
without them as confidants, I must write with no more inspiring object
in view than the wastebasket. Indeed, I found it difficult to compose
without keeping before me the image of a friend. Having stipulated that
e