I don't like thinking or talking about it, because it has its other side; the thought of a woman in connection with such things is so unutterably ghastly; it is one of the problems about which I say most earnestly 'God knows.'" One other letter of this period, is worth, I think, inserting here.
"Tredennis, August 29.
"I had an instructive parable thrown in my way to-day, containing an obvious lesson for Eddy, and a further meaning for myself.

Eddy came running to me about eleven, to tell me there was a man in the garden.
I hurried to the spot he indicated; and there, in a kind of nook formed by a fernery, his head resting in a great glowing circle of St.John's wort, and his feet tucked up under him, lay a drunken tramp, asleep.

He was in the last stage of disease; his face was white and fallen away, except his nose and eyes, which were red and bloodshot; he had a horrible sore on his neck; he was unshaven and fearfully dirty; he had on torn trousers; a flannel shirt, open at the neck; and a swallow-tail coat, green with age, buttoned round him.

His hat, such as it was, lay on the ground at his side.

Edward regarded him with unfeigned curiosity and dismay.