in Chaucer, Paragot had over "his beddes hedde" a
shelf of books to which, careless creature that he was, he did not dream
of denying me access. In that attic in Tavistock Street I read Smollett
and Byron and somehow spelt through "Nana." I also found there the _De
Imitatione Christi_, which I read with much the same enjoyment as I did
the others. You must not think this priggish of me. The impressionable
child of starved imagination will read anything that is printed. In my
mother's house I used to purloin the squares of newspaper in which the
fried fish from Mr. Samuel's had been wrapped, and surreptitiously read
them. Why not Saint Thomas a Kempis?

I have in my possession now a filthy piece of paper, dropping to bits,
on which is copied, in my round Board School boy handwriting, the
eleventh chapter of the _De Imitatione_.

It runs:

"_My Son, thou hast still many things to learn, which thou hast not well
learned yet._"

"_What are they, Lord_?"

"_To place thy desire altogether in subjection to my good pleasure and
not to be a lover of thyself, but an earnest seeker of my will. Thy
desires often excite and urge thee forward: but consider with thyself
whether thou art not more moved for thine own objects than for my
honour. If it is myself that thou seekest thou shalt be well content
with whatsoever I shall ordain; but if any pursuit of thine own lieth
hidden within thee, behold it is this which hindreth and weigheth thee
down._

"_Beware, therefore, lest thou strive too earnestly after some desire
which thou hast conceived, without taking counsel of me: lest haply it
repent thee afterwards, and that displease thee which before pleased,
and for which thou didst long as for a great good. For not every
affection which seemeth good is to be forthwith followed: neither is
every opposite affection to be immediately avoided. Sometimes it is
expedient to use restraint even in good desires and wishes, lest through
importunity thou fall into distraction of mind, lest through want of
discipline thou become a stumbling-block to others, or lest by the
resistance of others thou be suddenly disturbed and brought to
confusion._

"_Sometimes indeed it is needful to use violence, and manfully to strive
against the sensual appetite, and not to consider what the flesh may or
not will; but rather to strive after this, that it may become subject,
however unwillingly, to the spirit. And for so long it ought to be
chastised and