are new to the business, a kind of
faint-heartedness overpowers us, and leaves us in an almost dazed
condition of mind. We feel that we are helpless aliens in a strange
country. At all ages we shrink back involuntarily from the unknown.
And a young man is very much like the soldier who will walk up to the
cannon's mouth, and is put to flight by a ghost. He hesitates among the
maxims of the world. The rules of attack and of self-defence are alike
unknown to him; he can neither give nor take; he is attracted by women,
and stands in awe of them; his very good qualities tell against him,
he is all generosity and modesty, and completely innocent of mercenary
designs. Pleasure and not interest is his object when he tells a lie;
and among many dubious courses, the conscience, with which as yet he has
not juggled, points out to him the right way, which he is slow to take.

"There are men whose lives are destined to be shaped by the impulses of
their hearts, rather than by any reasoning process that takes place in
their heads, and such natures as these will remain for a long while in
the position that I have described. This was my own case. I became the
plaything of two contending impulses; the desires of youth were always
held in check by a faint-hearted sentimentality. Life in Paris is a
cruel ordeal for impressionable natures, the great inequalities of
fortune or of position inflame their souls and stir up bitter feelings.
In that world of magnificence and pettiness envy is more apt to be a
dagger than a spur. You are bound either to fall a victim or to become a
partisan in this incessant strife of ambitions, desires, and hatreds,
in the midst of which you are placed; and by slow degrees the picture
of vice triumphant and virtue made ridiculous produces its effect on
a young man, and he wavers; life in Paris soon rubs the bloom from
conscience, the infernal work of demoralization has begun, and is
soon accomplished. The first of pleasures, that which at the outset
comprehends all the others, is set about with such perils that it is
impossible not to reflect upon the least actions which it provokes,
impossible not to calculate all its consequences. These calculations
lead to selfishness. If some poor student, carried away by an
impassioned enthusiasm, is fain to rise above selfish considerations,
the suspicious attitude of those about him makes him pause and doubt;
it is so hard not to share their mistrust, so difficult not to