Brother was always good company. He is witty, and easily moved by humour or pathos. Once stir his worthy emotions and his better nature comes to the surface, though he resists being stirred as long as he can. A fond father, he is, on the whole, a wise one, except when his temper, or his infirmity, gets the better of him. Like our dear, testy grandfather in disposition, he reacts in much the same way, yet, with all his impatience, shows surprising tolerance with certain vagaries and eccentricities in others who, being the victims of hereditary and constitutional handicaps, are “gey ill to live with.” Love for his children is one of his strongest traits. A few months ago, when a maternal uncle, an alcoholic, died, Brother took his own little son to the uncle’s coffin and there, telling the child what a promising youth the uncle had been, explained to him that drink had been his ruination. He wrote me that he had made the child (only three years old) understand it all; and then had made him promise that he would never touch alcohol in any form. Poor, tempted, struggling soul! Whitman has expressed tenderly and understandingly the feelings that always well up in me at the thought of my brother’s struggles and defeats--“Vivas for those who have failed!” Such need pity, help, and credit far more than we are wont to give. Bobbie Burns knew whereof he spoke when he reminded us: What’s done we partly may compute, But know not what’s resisted. Father and Mother still have hope in Brother’s ultimate victory[2]--such faith, and such optimism, combined with such tenderness and forgiveness! I know of nothing more God-like than these attributes as I have seen them exemplified in the daily lives of my parents. “Like as a father pitieth his children”--what a perfect example I have known of this infinite, compassionate love! FOOTNOTE: [2] The victory came some years after this was written. My brother now knows the triumph of him “who ruleth his spirit.” CHAPTER III “A CHILD WENT FORTH” Environment--what part does it play? Its stamp is upon us, but other forces and influences also determine our reactions and mould our characters. Is the objective environment alone the sea in which we swim? More significant still are the emotions which a given environment induces in each individual. To determine these it is needful to resort to our earliest memories. What were the things that so impressed us that we carry them on down through the years, an inseparable part of our inmost selves? What part have they played in shaping our characters? I have said that it was a commonplace little village where I was born, and to another it may seem a commonplace outward life that I have to record. But who among us will own to a commonplace inner, subjective life?