HenConOutHal

told her I liked concealments I hated the thought of this letter

have just written so far, and am better – Hail! all hail my journal! thou kind beguiler of many an irksome thought and many a solitary hour – thou friend of old! thou faithful mentor that hast calmed alike the burst of joy and grief, and taught my soul to hoard its best resources far from the reach of human gasp!

I longed for a nut shell to live quietly in and yet the thought of her and the parting distressed me —

poor fellow! such a thing as a journal was quite foreign to him – he seemed quite astonished when I calmly said I could tell what I had said and done for the last 21 years past quite as well as for the last Sunday but one

“I need a little language such as lovers use, words of one syllable such as children speak when they come into the room and find their mother sewing and pick up some scrap of bright wool, a feather, or a shred of chintz. I need a howl; a cry. When the storm crosses the marsh and sweeps over me where I lie in the ditch unregarded I need no words. Nothing neat. Nothing that comes down with all its feet on the floor. None of those resonances and lovely echoes that break and chime from nerve to nerve in our breasts making wild music, false phrases. I have done with phrases.”