t dirty voluptuary.

He went out for long walks, hoping by exercise to throw off the gloom
and horror which were thickening in his brain. He sought vainly to
arrive at some certain opinions concerning his poems, and he weighed
every line, not now for cadence and colour, but with a view of
determining their ethical tendencies; and this poor torn soul stood
trembling on the verge of fearful abyss of unreason and doubt.

And when he walked in the streets, London appeared a dismal, phantom
city. The tall houses vanishing in darkness, the unending noise, the
sudden and vague figures passing; some with unclean gaze, others in
mysterious haste, the courtesans springing from hansoms and entering
their restaurant, lurking prostitutes, jocular lads, and alleys
suggestive of crime. All and everything that is city fell violently
upon his mind, jarring it, and flashing over his brow all the horror
of delirium. His pace quickened, and he longed for wings to rise out
of the abominable labyrinth.

At that moment a gable of a church rose against the sky. The gates
were open, and one passing through seemed to John like an angel, and
obeying the instinct which compels the hunted animal to seek refuge
in the earth, he entered, and threw himself on his knees. Relief
came, and the dread about his heart was loosened in the romantic
twilight. One poor woman knelt amid the chairs; presently she rose
and went to the confessional. He waited his turn, his eyes fixed on
the candles that burned in the dusky distance.

"Father, forgive me, for I have sinned!"

The priest, an old man of gray and shrivelled mien, settled his
cassock and mumbled some Latin.

"I have come to ask your advice, father, rather than to confess the
sins I have committed in the last week. Since I have come to live in
London I have been drawn into the society of the dissolute and the
impure."

"And you have found that your faith and your morals are being
weakened by association with these men?"

"I have to thank God that I am uninfluenced by them. Their society
presents no attractions for me, but I am engaged in literary
pursuits, and most of the young men with whom I am brought in contact
lead unclean and unholy lives. I have striven, and have in some
measure succeeded, in enforcing respect for my ideals; never have
I countenanced indecent conversation, although perhaps I have not
always set as stern a face against it as I might have."

"But you have never joined in