Shall you have read this as a friend , I wonder -- a candid , uncritical , understanding friend ? Let me hope it , dear lady . '' I was expecting the third letter when it came -- but not until it did come did I realize what my disappointment would have been if it had not . After that every week brought me a letter ; soon those letters were the greatest interest in my life . I had given up all attempts to solve the mystery of their coming and was content to enjoy them for themselves alone . From week to week I looked forward to them with an eagerness that I would hardly confess , even to myself . And such letters as they were , growing longer and fuller and freer as time went on -- such wise , witty , brilliant , pungent letters , stimulating all my torpid life into tingling zest ! I had begun to look abroad in my small world for worthy work and found plenty to do . My unknown friend evidently kept track of my expanding efforts , for he commented and criticized , encouraged and advised freely . There was a humour in his letters that I liked ; it leavened them with its sanity and reacted on me most wholesomely , counteracting many of the morbid tendencies and influences of my life . I found myself striving to live up to the writer 's ideal of philosophy and ambition , as pictured , often unconsciously , in his letters . They were an intellectual stimulant as well . To understand them fully I found it necessary to acquaint myself thoroughly with the literature and art , the science and the politics they touched upon . After every letter there was something new for me to hunt out and learn and assimilate , until my old narrow mental attitude had so broadened and deepened , sweeping out into circles of thought I had never known or imagined , that I hardly knew myself . They had been coming for a year before I began to reply to them . I had often wished to do so -- there were so many things I wanted to say and discuss , but it seemed foolish to write letters that could not be sent . One day a letter came that kindled my imagination and stirred my heart and soul so deeply that they insistently demanded answering expression . I sat down at my desk and wrote a full reply to it . Safe in the belief that the mysterious friend to whom it was written would never see it , I wrote with a perfect freedom and a total lack of self-consciousness that I could never have attained otherwise . The writing of that letter gave me a pleasure second only to that which the reading of his brought .
For the first time I discovered the delight XXXXX revealing my thought unhindered by the conventions .
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