Letter LXXI

Yet it is not only occasions of happiness and pain which impress
themselves. When the mind takes a sudden stride in consciousness,--that,
also, fixes itself. I remember the agony of shyness which came on me when
strange hands did my undressing for me once in Nan-nan's absence: the
first time I had felt such a thing. And another day I remember, after
contemplating the head of Judas in a pictorial puzzle for a long time,
that I seized a brick and pounded him with it beyond recognition:--these
were the first vengeful beginnings of Christianity in me. All my history,
Bible and English, came to me through picture-books. I wept tenderly over
the endangered eyes of Prince Arthur, yet I put out the eyes of many
kings, princes, and governors who incurred my displeasure, scratching them
with pins till only a white blur remained on the paper.

All this comes to me quite seriously now: I used to laugh thinking it
over. But can a single thing we do be called trivial, since out of it we
grow up minute by minute into a whole being charged with capacity for
gladness or suffering?

Now, as I look back, all these atoms of memory are dust and ashes that I
have walked through in order to get to present things. How I suffer, how
I suffer! If you could have dreamed that a human body could contain so
much suffering, I think you would have chosen a less dreadful way of
showing me your will: you would have given me a reason why I have to
suffer so.