[Pg 51]

[Pg 52]

"Relieve your mind, my son."

"About fourteen years ago, I dined with a woman whose husband was a great friend of mine. Her two children dined with us—a girl of fifteen, a boy of thirteen. Her husband was away on business for a few months. Soon after dinner, she sent the children to bed. A few minutes later she went to say good-night to them: she was an excellent mother. I remained in the drawing-room. When she returned, I was standing to take my departure. As she entered, she closed the door and switched off the electric light. I instinctively struck a match. She laughed, apologising for being absent-minded. I said the usual polite idioms and went away. A fortnight later, I dined there again by invitation. All went on as before: but this time, when she came back from saying good-night to the children she was wearing a violet flannel dressing-gown. I said nothing at all; and instantly left her. Afterwards, I gave her the cut direct in the street. I never have spoken to her since. Her husband was a good man, a martyr, and I immensely admired him. He died a few years later. I have no feeling for her except detestation. She was wickedly ugly. Vague thoughts ensued from these incidents; thoughts not connected with her but with some sensuous idea, some phasma of my imagination. They never were more than thoughts. I think that I must have delighted in them, because they returned to me perhaps twelve or fourteen times in as many years. I confess these sins of thought. Also, I think that I ought to confess myself lacking in alacrity after the first switching off of the electric light; and that I never ought to have remained alone with that woman again. I was ridiculously[Pg 53] dense: for, only after the second event, did I see what the first had portended. I confess that I have not kept my senses in proper custody. I place no restraint whatever upon sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, except in so far as my natural sympathies or antipathies direct me. I cultivate them and refine them and sharpen them: but never mortify them. I hardly ever practise self-denial. Even when I do, I catch myself extracting elements of æsthetic enjoyment from it. For example, I was present at the amputation of a leg. Under anæsthetics, directly the saw touched the marrow of the thigh bone, the other leg began to kick. I was next to it; and the surgeon told me to hold it still. It was ghastly: but I did. And then I actually caught myself admiring the exquisite silky texture of human skin.... Father, I am my Master's most unfaithful servant. I am a very sorry Christian. I 

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