I had taken it up under compulsion and not of my own free will,
nevertheless, as public opinion in these days regards it as a crime to
break away from a mode of life once taken up, I had resolved to endure
with fortitude this part of my unhappiness also--you know that I am in
many things unfortunate. But I have always regarded this one thing as
harder than all the rest, that I had been forced into a mode of life for
which I was totally unfit both in body and in mind: in mind, because I
abhorred ritual and loved liberty; in body, because even had I been
perfectly satisfied with the life, my constitution could not endure such
labours. One may object that I had a year of probation, as it is called,
and that I was of ripe age. Ridiculous! As if anyone could expect a boy
of sixteen, particularly one with a literary training, to know himself
(an achievement even for an old man), or to have succeeded in learning
in a single year what many do not yet understand in their grey hairs.
Though I myself never liked the life, still less after I had tried it,
but was trapped in the way I have mentioned; although I confess that the
truly good man will live a good life in any calling. And I do not deny
that I was prone to grievous vices, but not of so utterly corrupt a
nature that I could not have come to some good, had I found a kindly
guide, a true Christian, not one given to Jewish scruples.

Meanwhile I looked about to find in what kind of life I could be least
bad, and I believe indeed that I have attained this. I have spent my
life meantime among sober men, in literary studies, which have kept me
off many vices. I have been able to associate with true followers of
Christ, whose conversation has made me a better man. I do not now boast
of my books, which you at Steyn perhaps despise.

But many confess that they have become not merely more knowledgeable,
but even better men through reading them. Passion for money has never
affected me. I am quite untouched by the thirst for fame. I have never
been a slave to pleasures, although I was formerly inclined to them.
Over-indulgence and drunkenness I have ever loathed and avoided. But
whenever I thought of returning to your society, I remembered the
jealousy of many, the contempt of all, the conversations how dull, how
foolish, how un-Christlike, the feasts how unclerical! In short the
whole way of life, from which if you remove the ritual, I do not see
what remains that one could desire. L