In that case you at least know the origin of the husk, but in the case in point I apparently preserved the husk but presently forgot whence it came.

It lay lost in some dim corner of my memory a year or two, then came forward when I needed a dedication, and was promptly mistaken by me as a child of my own happy fancy.
I was new, I was ignorant, the mysteries of the human mind were a sealed book to me as yet, and I stupidly looked upon myself as a tough and unforgivable criminal.

I wrote to Dr.Holmes and told him the whole disgraceful affair, implored him in impassioned language to believe that I had never intended to commit this crime, and was unaware that I had committed it until I was confronted with the awful evidence.

I have lost his answer, I could better have afforded to lose an uncle.

Of these I had a surplus, many of them of no real value to me, but that letter was beyond price, beyond uncledom, and unsparable.