usly, and then gave a bolt. How he
accomplished it I don't know, for he was very unsteady on his feet;
but he got to the wall, and dropped over it into the road, and was
out of sight before we could get there. He evidently had some dim
idea that he had been trespassing.

"Edward inquired what sort of a man he was.

"'An English gentleman, in all probability,' I said, 'who has got
into that state by always doing as he liked.' And I went on to point
out, as simply as I could, that everybody has two sets of desires,
and that you must make up your mind which to gratify early in life,
determining to face this kind of ending if you fix upon one set.
'Early in life,' I said, 'when this gentleman was a well-dressed
clean boy like you, one of the voices used to whisper to him at his
ear, "Eat as much as you can; that is what you really like best;"
while the other said, "If you eat rather less, you will be able to
play football, or read your book better; besides, you will be your
own master and less of a beast."

"'But he wouldn't listen; and this is the result.'

"Edward seemed to ponder it deeply. He tried to starve himself to-day
at lunch; and I refrained from pointing out to him that abstinence
from meat at lunch was not the _unum necessarium_, for fear of
confusing the ingenuous mind. I like to see people grasp the concrete
issue in one of its bearings. The principle will gradually develop
itself; from denying themselves in one point, they will or may grow
to be generally temperate; when confronted with overmastering and
baser impulses, it may be they will say, 'Let me be [Greek: egkrates
emautou] even here.'

"So much for Edward's lesson; now for my own. My first impulse was to
loathe and reject the poor object, body and soul. He was merely the
embodiment of long-continued vice. His body was a diseased framework,
breaking quickly up, conscious of no pleasure but appetite, and now
merely existing and held together by the desire of gratifying it; the
little vitality it possessed, just gathering enough volume in the
quiet intervals to satiate one of its three jaded cravings--lust,
hunger, and thirst, and feebly groping after alcoholic and other
stimulants to repair its exhaustion; the soul in her dreamy intervals
drowsily recounting or contemplating lust past and to come--a ghastly
spectacle!

"And yet I am bound to think, and do record it as my deliberate
belief, that that poor, wretched, withered, gross soul is desti