Man may be reasonable and
patient; he has natures to control, apparently for his own good, that
are neither reasonable nor patient; that themselves never rest and
demand guidance from a spirit, that does need rest; that always want to
have their own way, and yet sink fatally downward if the government of
the mind leaves them unguarded. And these are given us by nature, as we
are told, the same nature which according to my father is always good
if man does not spoil her.
So as not to disturb you by exciting your imagination, dear reader,
which might make the driving of your own team more troublesome to you,
I shall mention no particulars of my struggle and my defeat. This
precaution of an old man need not hurt you.
I fell under the joint influence of the following things: the fatally
arisen rupture between corporal and spiritual desires, - the sharp
contrast between English purity and English lewdness that, with its
incomprehensible contradiction, has as exciting an effect as the dog in
the duck-yard, who decoys the inquisitive ducks into the mouth of the
strangler, - and finally the accursed self-contempt that makes one say:
"There's nothing lost with me anyway.
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