I thought I should die, and I could not face it for a moment.

I don't think it was sheer cowardice at first, but I thought how hard it was to be taken away from my mother and sisters and you all, just as I was beginning to see my way to many things, and to feel that I might be a man and do a man's work.
To die without having fought, and worked, and given one's life away, was too hard to bear.

I got terribly impatient, and accused God of injustice, and strove to justify myself.

And the harder I strove the deeper I sank.

Then the image of my dear father often came across me, but I turned from it.