fidences characteristic of a man seeking
sympathy and alms. He was secretive and with no eagerness for plans
for his benefit, and refused the offer of a small weekly sum that would
enable him to sleep in a bed and sit at a table."

By patience and delicately offered kindnesses Mr. and Mrs. Meynell at
length won the difficult privilege of helping the shy, nervous,
high-strung spirit wandering in pain, hunger and exile amid the
indecencies of extreme penury in a great city. They were helped by the
friendly sympathy and care of Premonstratensian and Franciscan monks.
Thompson had sounded, and become familiar with, the depths of social
degradation in all its external aspects of sordidness. The most
extraordinary part of his singular experience is that he affords a
striking instance of the triumph of soul and mind over beleaguering
circumstance. The nightmare of his environment failed to subdue him.
He preserved his spiritual sensitiveness, and literary ideals of a most
exalted kind, through the most depressing and demoralizing experiences.
The following passage in that first essay offered to Mr. Meynell,
entitled "Paganism: Old and New," a vindication of Christian over pagan
ideals in art, shows the rich, colorful tone of mind of one who could
walk unstained among the world's impurities. "Bring back then, I say,
in conclusion, even the best age of Paganism, and you smite beauty on
the cheek. But you _cannot_ bring back the best age of Paganism, the
age when Paganism was a faith. None will again behold Apollo in the
forefront of the morning, or see Aphrodite in the upper air loose the
long lustre of her golden locks. But you _may_ bring back--_dii
avertant omen_--the Paganism of the days of Pliny, and Statius, and
Juvenal; of much philosophy, and little belief; of superb villas and
superb taste; of banquets for the palate in the shape of cookery, and
banquets for the eye in the shape of art; of poetry singing dead songs
on dead themes with the most polished and artistic vocalisation; of
everything most polished, from the manners to the marble floors; of
vice carefully drained out of sight, and large fountains of virtue
springing in the open air;--in one word, a most shining Paganism
indeed--as putrescence also shines." Unlike George Gissing and so many
others who had to wade to celebrity through sloughs of bitter
destitution, Francis Thompson felt no inclination to capitalize his
expert knowledge of back streets and