. . . I don't defend my conduct, I explain it, also there are in the letter
certain passages which deal with my mental development in prison and
the inevitable evolution of character and intellectual attitude towards life
that has taken place, and I want you, and others who still stand by me
and have affection for me, to know exactly in what mood and manner I
hope to face the world. Of course, from one point of view I know that
on the day of my release I shall be merely passing from one prison into
another, and there are times when the whole world seems to me no larger
than my cell and as full of terror for me. Still I believe that at the beginning
God made a world for each separate man, and in that world, which is
within us, one should seek to live. At any rate, you will read those parts
of my letter with less pain than the others. Of course I need not remind
you how fluid a thing thought is with me — with us all — and of what an
evanescent substance are our emotions made. Still, I do see a sort of
possible goal towards which, through art, I may progress. It is not
unlikely that you may help me. As regards the mode of copying : of
course it is too long for any amanuensis to attempt, and your own hand-
writing, dear Robbie, in your last letter seems specially designed to remind
me that the task is not to be yours. I may wrong you, and hope I do,
but it really looks as though you were engaged in writing a three-volume
novel on the dangerous prevalence of communistic opinions among the
rich ... or in some other way wasting a youth that I cannot help saying
has always been, and will always remain, quite full of promise. I think
that the only thing to do is to be thoroughly modern and to have it type-
written. Of course the MS. should not pass out of your control, but could
you not get Mrs. Marshall to send down one of her type-writing girls ?
Women are the most reliable, as they have no memory for the important.
