My ideas had been taking a socialistic shape for many years; but they were lacking in definite outline.

Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped — to reach it. For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, and contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven.

We lived within two hundred yards of the sea, and its voice was in our ears night and day.

IT is curious that, with my somewhat antinomian tendencies, I should have gone to Trinity Hall - which was, and is, before all a Law College - and should thus have been thrown into close touch with the legal element in life.

With my somewhat vague aspiring mind, to be imprisoned in the rude details of a most material life was often irksome.

The other thing that happened in 1883 was my reading of Thoreau's Walden.

I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know exactly why I didn't.