So now nothing remains but to finish the term out, pack up and go. I have been searching for work but there does not seem anything vacant just at present. It is no light thing at my age suddenly to throw up the profession one has adopted and to begin again. Education was my one great passion in life. I can never hope to be a great writer. The future is black: I dare not contemplate it. There are still, however, thank God, some weeks to go. _April 3, 1917_ My last term as a Public School master is over. How I managed to get through the last few hours in school without breaking down I don't know. Luckily no one knows the agony I feel. Several, the majority of people, think that I am leaving of my own free will in order to be at liberty to write: the irony of that is laughable. I would give my whole soul to continue to my life's end as a teacher of youth: I have loved my work with a passion I could never transfer to anything else. I have made endless mistakes. I have gone too fast: I have treated growing boys as if they were grown up: I have not always given my colleagues their due in my intolerance of lukewarmness. I have always worshipped energy, and energy has been my ruin. I have never been able to curb my tongue or my enthusiasm nor to stifle my opinion. The grass has grown over the grave of my ambitions at Radchester and I am by now forgotten as a breath of wind that once passed over, so will it be at Marlton in a term or so. All my ardour gone for nothing, my strenuous ideals broken, my office another man will take and Marlton will be at peace again. Regrets I know to be vain, tears wasteful. The decree has gone forth against me and I must abide by it. But after all, "There is a world elsewhere!" Marlton is somewhat of a backwater, the waters here run very sluggishly. I want more scope; once I am in the great world again I shall quickly recover my sense of perspective and come to regard this place in its true light. My four years' experience here has been most valuable, but the secret of success in life is to keep moving. A rolling stone may gather no moss, but it does "see life." At any rate I am saved from sinking into a groove. To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. The meaning of life, as Tchekov says, is to be found only in one thing--fighting. To get one's heel on the vile head of the serpent and to crush it.... If one has made a mistake and lost faith in one idea, one may find another. I have still got what I would not barter for anything in heaven or earth, and that is the love of Elspeth. So long as she remains mine I can defy the world, I am happy. Pray God she will never desert me and turn me out as Marlton has, for without her I have no sun, no moon, no reason for being. She possesses me heart and soul. I only wish she could ever realize a millionth part of what she means to me. APPENDIX