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hold up my head again, in Worcester or even elsewhere, if I did not vindicate my past words by actions though tardy.
It seemed to me also, which is more important, that beyond a certain point one has no right to concentrate his whole life on one private duty.
Two weeks later he told her:—
I am going to Boston to-day with my company roll full, to get authority to choose officers; and next week we expect to go into barracks in a large building a little way out of town . . . Everybody praises the material of my company and their appearance on the street.
The inner conflict was over, as his journal shows, under date of August 31:—
Since I have decided on my duty, my whole path has been perfectly clear; I have been like a ship in [the] bay, all other paths obstructed, but this one perfectly clear . . . .
I see at every moment that all the currents of my life converge in this direction and that my time is absolutely come . . .What I could write I have written and should I never write anything more, no matter.
So far as any personal plans of my own are concerned, I am absolutely free and could I leave M——out of view could die to-morrow with no feeling but of a happy confidence in the Eternal Laws, not unmingled with a sweet curiosity.
To his mother, he wrote:—
