We finished the day at some old friends of mine, and voted the
week-end a huge success.

When I went to Woolwich I was just on the verge of getting keen
on games and beginning to feel self-confident, and to enjoy the
fellowship of my comrades. Woolwich nipped this in the bud. I left
with no self-confidence, having renounced games, and with a sense
of solitariness among my comrades. I was a misanthrope, and the
unhappiest sort of egotist--the kind that dislikes himself. To say
the truth, too, I was then, and always have been, a bit of a funk,
physically, which didn't make me happier. On the other hand, I was an
omnivorous reader of everything which did not concern my profession,
and a dabbler in military history.

I have sometimes thought that I was unconsciously a bit of a hero at
Woolwich, standing out for purity and religion in an atmosphere of
filth and blasphemy. I have come to the conclusion, however, that
there was nothing in this. As to the general atmosphere, there is
no doubt that it was singularly pernicious; even the officers and
instructors contributed their quota of filthy jokes, and there was no
religious instruction or influence at all except the parade service at
the garrison church on Sunday, if one happened not to be on leave. But
as to my heroism I am reluctantly compelled to be sceptical. I went
as far as I felt my inclination, and stopped after a time because
instinct was too strong the other way.

As I have said before, I have always had an insurmountable instinct
for keeping rules. At school I could never bring myself to transgress,
although I knew that transgression was the road to adventure. So
at the Shop, however much I may have wished to be in the swim, my
instinct for the moral and religious code of home was too strong for
me. It required no self-control to prevent myself from slipping into
blasphemy and filth. On the contrary, in order to do so I should have
had to violate my strongest instincts, and exercised a will to evil
much stronger than any will power that I possessed at that time. If,
when I left Woolwich, I was comparatively pure, it was because nature
did not allow me to be anything else.

To say the truth, I have never felt the sway of passions to anything
like the same extent as most men seem to. I have never cared for the
society of women for its sexual attraction. Consequently all my women
friends have been just the same to me as my men friends--friends whom
I could tal