25 September 1916 – 1 October 1916

The numbness in my right hand is getting very trying. ... The Baby puts the lid on it all. Can't you see the sordid picture? I can, and it haunts me. To be paralysed with a wife and child and no money--ugh! Retribution proceeds with an almost mathematical accuracy of measure. It would necessitate a vernier rather than a chain. There is no mercy in Cause and Effect. It is inhuman clockwork. Every single act expended brings one its precise equivalent in return....

Still nothing to report. I am astonished at the false impression these entries give of myself. The picture is incomplete anyhow. It represents the cloud of forebodings over my inner self but does not show the outward front I present to others. This is one of almost constant gaiety--unforced and quite natural. Ask E----, who said yesterday I was like a schoolboy. "Camerade, I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? Will you come, travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?" She cut this out of her copy of Walt Whitman and gave it me soon after our engagement. It is very precious to me. (On Sept. 29th, on the Doctor's advice I went away by the sea alone, my nerves being all unstrung. For an account of the miseries of this journey, see Dec. 12th infra).