of MSS. he has left alone proves--for we have it
on a friend's testimony that "he tore up much of what he wrote"; and
he also had experienced and suffered, violating his natural "timidity"
and his in some ways, precarious health, for he had never got over
certain weaknesses engendered by his illness in Mauritius--in his
struggle to get a true basis for a solution of the meaning of life
and of religion. What cost him most was the knowledge that he
was frequently doubted and misunderstood by many of those whose
approbation would have been very dear to him. This is proved by his
constantly expressed gratitude to the one or two who never doubted him
for one moment.

With the writing of this book, as we know, all his difficulties began
to clear away, and at the same time he began to reap the harvest of
love and admiration that he had sown in his toils to produce it.
And the result was he opened out like a flower to the sun! No one
can doubt this for a moment who has read his book of a year later,
_The Student in Arms_, and rejoiced in the radiant happiness of its
inspiration.

He had more than once said to me during the past two years, "You know
it makes a _tremendous_ difference to me when people really _like_
me." No longer was it a case of "one friend at a time." The period for
that was over and done with. He had come into his own. He was ready
for a universal brotherhood, and no hand would ever be held out to him
in vain.

It is impossible to believe that he does not now know of and
appreciate all the beautiful tributes that have come to him since
his "passing"--from the perfect wreath of immortelles weaved by Mr.
Strachey to the sweet pansy of thought dropped by a little fellow
V.A.D. of mine who said beautifully and courageously--though knowing
him solely through his book--"We feel since he gave us his thought
that he belongs a tiny bit to us, too," thus voicing the feeling of
many.

I believe the paper entitled "My Home" to have been written at Oxford,
and "School" not so very long after. In any case, I have definite
proof of their both belonging to Donald's pre-"Renaissance" period,
for the friendship with F----, that began at "the Shop" and went under
a cloud for a time, was renewed with fresh vigour in 1914, and has
burned brightly ever since. Only last July was I sent by him a letter
of F----'s from the trenches, with the injunction, "Please put this
among my treasures," and there is an allusion to a story t