But you can understand, Bertie,
that it is humiliating for a man of my age to have to go
about without any money in my pocket. It affects me in
so many petty ways. A poor man may do me a kindness, and
I have to seem mean in his eyes. I may want a flower for
a girl, and must be content to appear ungallant. I
don't know why I should be ashamed of this, since it is
no fault of mine, and I hope that I don't show it to any
one else that I AM ashamed of it; but to you, my dear
Bertie, I don't mind confessing that it hurts my self-
respect terribly.
I have often wondered why some of those writing
fellows don't try their hands at drawing the inner life
of a young man from about the age of puberty until he
begins to find his feet a little. Men are very fond of
analysing the feelings of their heroines, which they
cannot possibly know anything about, while they have
little to say of the inner development of their heroes,
which is an experience which they have themselves
undergone. I should like to try it myself, but it would
need blending with fiction, and I never had a spark of
imagination. But I have a vivid recollection of what I
went through myself. At the time I thought (as everybody
thinks) that it was a unique experience; but since I have
heard the confidences of my father's patients I am
convinced that it is the common lot. The shrinking,
horrible shyness, alternating with occasional absurd fits
of audacity which represent the reaction against it,
the longing for close friendship, the agonies over
imaginary slights, the extraordinary sexual doubts, the
deadly fears caused by non-existent diseases, the vague
emotion produced by all women, and the half-frightened
thrill by particular ones, the aggressiveness caused by
fear of being afraid, the sudden blacknesses, the
profound self-distrust--I dare bet that you have felt
every one of them, Bertie, just as I have, and that the
first lad of eighteen whom you see out of your window is
suffering from them now.
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