It is not to be expressed with what eagerness I strove to live in my solitude as a man should live in the company of his fellows. Down to the pettiest detail of personal manners, I tried to do as other men must be doing. Whatsoever seemed to be the habit of a Christian man that I practised, and (though all alone and having no man's eye to see me) with a grim and awesome earnestness. Thus before food, I not only washed but dressed afresh, taking off the sea-boots or the curranes I worked in, and putting on my shoes with silver buckles. My seaman's jacket I removed for a long coat of blue, and I was careful that my shirt was spotless. In this wise I also never failed to attire myself in the evening of the day for the short hours of rest between my work and my bed. That my cheeks should be kept clean of hair, and that the hair of my head should never outgrow itself, was a constant care, for I stood in fear of the creeping consciousness which my face in the glass might bring me, that I was other than other men. But I am loth to set down my little foolish formalities on sitting to meat and rising from it, and the silly ceremonies wherewith I indulged myself at going abroad and coming home. Inexpressibly comic and ridiculous some of them would seem to me now, but for the tragic meaning that in my terror underlay them. And remembering how much a defaulter I had been in all such courtesies of life when most they were called for, I could almost laugh to think how scrupulous I was in their observance when I was quite alone, with never an eye to see me, what I did or how I was clad, or in what sorry fashion I in my solitude acquitted myself like a man.