ask me what I think the probable effect that yielding to such
temptation has on a man's character. Of course, some drift into
hopeless sensualists. About those I have my own gospel, though I do
not preach it; it is a scarcely formulated hope. But of those that
recover, or are recovered, all depends upon the kind of repentance.
The morbid repentance that sometimes ensues is very disabling. All
dwelling on such falls is very fatal: all thoughts of what might have
been, all reflections about the profaned temple and the desecrated
shrine, though they can not be escaped, yet must not be indulged.
I always advise people resolutely to try and forget them in _any_
possible way--banish them, drown them, beat them down.

"But a manly repentance may temper and brace the character in a way
that no other repented fall can. It is the brooding natures which
make me tremble; in healthier natures it is the refiner's fire which
stings and consecrates: '_Sanat dum ferit_.'

"But the subject is very repugnant to me. 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. While we stood
watching him, he began to stir and shift uneasily in his sleep, as a
watched person will, and presently woke and rolled to his feet with
a torrent of the foulest language. He was three-parts drunk. He
watched us for a moment suspicio