nd no longer the
same.

Besides that dryness of the heart which made him feel as soon as he
entered a church or knelt down in his room, that a cold grip froze his
prayers and chilled his soul, he detected the covert attacks, the mute
assaults of ridiculous pride.

In vain did he keep watch; he was constantly taken by surprise without
having time even to look round him.

It began under the most temperate guise, the most benign reflections.

Supposing, for instance, that he had done his neighbour a service at
some inconvenience to himself, or that he had refrained from retaliating
on anybody against whom he believed he had a grievance, or for whom he
had no liking, a certain self-satisfaction stole, sneaked into his mind,
a certain vain-glory, ending in the senseless conclusion that he was
superior to many another man; and then, on this feeling of petty vanity,
pride was engrafted--the pride of a virtue he had not even struggled to
acquire, the arrogance of chastity, so insidious that most of those who
indulge it do not even suspect themselves.

And he was never aware of the end of these assaults till too late, when
they had become definite, and he had forgotten himself and succumbed;
and he was in despair at finding that he constantly fell into the same
snare, telling himself that the little good he could do must be wiped
out of the balance of his life by the outrageous extravagance of this
vice.

He was frenzied, he reasoned with the old mad arguments, and cried out
at his wits' end,--

"La Trappe crushed me! It cured me of sensuality, but only to load me
with disorders of which I knew nothing before I submitted to that
treatment! It is humble itself, but it puffed up my vanity and increased
my pride tenfold--then it set me free, but so weak, so wearied, that I
have never since been able to conquer that inanition, never have been
fit to enjoy the Mystical Nourishment which I nevertheless must have if
I am not to die to God!"

And for the hundredth time he asked himself,--

"Am I happier than I was before I was converted?"

And to be truthful to himself he was bound to answer "Yes." He lived on
the whole a Christian life, prayed but badly, but at any rate prayed
without ceasing; only--only--Alas! How worm-eaten, how arid were the
poor recesses of his soul! He wondered, with anguish, whether they would
not end like the Manor in Edgar Poe's tale, by crumbling suddenly, one
fatal day, into the dark waters of th