I was much interested in . . . (your letter) and in seeing a little into your life. There is a strange family reserve among us which I sometimes deplore. Perhaps it must always be so, that we can tell most readily to strangers our deepest thoughts and feelings. Yet I feel that we ought, as far as we can in this short life, to understand one another. We have been led by different paths to understand different aspects {138} of Truth. Yet, when we have climbed to the top of the hill, I dare say we shall find that our paths were nearer to one another than we ever realised. At any rate, we shall meet on the top. I often think that your whole method of gaining truth must be unlike mine. I use my reason, but I am more than half affection, and it is that which helps me most. My strange love for some men makes me seek to live their lives, to see the world as they see it; above all, it forces me to pray. Prayer never seems to me irrational; yet I do not pray so much because my reason bids me as because my affection forces me. I sometimes feel that I should go mad if I didn't or couldn't. And then, again, I am incapable of telling them all I feel, and I have to find some one to tell it to, and I feel forced back on One who knows me through and through, and I find comfort in pouring out my soul to Him--in telling Him all, much that I dare say to no one else--in letting Him sift the good and evil--in asking Him to develop and satisfy the good, and to exterminate the evil. I cannot help trusting Him. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. You will tell me perhaps that I am too much like a woman in matters of faith. Yet so I am made. I must follow the lead of my whole being--not of my mind alone. I often wonder how it is that I love with such a strange, passionate, unutterable affection, and whether many men are like me. {139} I am most pleased to hear of your doings, especially of your whist parties. _To F. S. H., chaplain on board H.M.S. Canopus._ Brislington; April 10, 1901.