There are immense legal and technical difficulties in a situation for which no precedent or legislation exists. We do not own, but only lease the property, and at the moment don't know where our responsibility begins or ends.
Himself is wrestling with the problem, and the little lines are gathering about his eyes and mouth.
He does not say very much at all, and he won't go near the North House any more. I know he can't bear it.
You and I have often talked of how dear they are, and how they never, never grow up, but are just boys all their days.
They can do the fighting, but they can't do the enduring. That is our bit.
I am trying to do mine, all I know how, but I am hard hit this time, Cornelia. I am on my knees.
V
Such a lot has happened since I wrote last. I am beginning to regard these letters as a real and faithful record of this strange phase of our life. I know how faithfully you will keep them as I do yours. They may come in handy one day to the person who may gather up the fragments of my achievement—when Finis has been written across the last page.
You see, Cornelia, here we have to keep rather quiet and lift a gallant head—Noblesse oblige has to be the watchword. This for two reasons, that so many people require bolstering, who if they detected any weakening in this direction would feel that the front line had broken.
Then it is necessary for our inward life. You know how much I have been through, and unless I had held my head high right along why then, it would just have meant the end of all things. But oh, how we can be misunderstood!