You lost the chance of your lifetime, Mother. I broke off suddenly the learned lecture on rhetoric. Henri Imer and Herbert were coming in from their ride, and I had literally to jump down the stairs to get the _glacé_ fruits out of the way in the kitchen before Herbert would burst in and find them there, spread out all over the room on buttered paper. We are a big family, and I made a lot. I am thinking of my Christmases. This is the first I have ever spent away from you. _Tarsus, January eighth, Nineteen-Nine._ It isn't because my husband is brand-new, or that we are living what is supposed to be "that difficult first year" that I object to separations. If this first year is difficult, come on the rest of the years, I say. But I already know, from our engagement days, what separations mean. Still, I saw quite distinctly, when Herbert's father sent him a check to go to the Holy Land, that he ought not to miss the chance. We may not get out this way again. I put it to myself: it will be a glorious thing _to have done_! So I told him he must seize the day. I could not accompany him for a reason that you may guess. I have not told you before: one doesn't always know one's self. Our holidays and examinations are arranged according to the Oriental Christmases. So they come in January to take in the period from the sixth to the nineteenth. It isn't a long time for a trip: but the Holy Land is not far away. Herbert started off two days ago on the Greek Christmas, and I took Socrates down to Mersina with me to see him off. Being Socrates' Christmas, we could avoid our own lack of gaiety in the last meal by blowing him to a big dinner at the hotel. You ought to have seen Herbert embarking for Syria, with Mr. Gould, an Englishman on our faculty, and half a dozen boys who live at Alexandretta, the next port--near enough and cheap enough to go home for the holidays. Mr. G. and Herbert took deck passage with the boys. It is January, with snow on the Taurus and cold winds on the Plain, but the Mediterranean blew hot on the day they left, and they could change to a cabin the next day, if it was too cold to spend the second night to Jaffa on deck. Herbert wore an old suit that we intended to throw away, and a black fez. With the beard he has grown to make him look older in the classroom, he is for all the world like a Russian pilgrim. Herbert is to be gone two weeks. Work is an antidote for the "mopes." I tell myself that he may be delayed in returning, and that I may have to tide over the first few days of the new term. So I am working up psychology lectures. I chew over a phrase like William James's "states of consciousness as such" until I fall asleep. I have to begin all over again the next morning, for I cannot remember what he means by "as such."