“Let me say one thing to you, Ishmael.  I have said it before, but when you were less able to understand.  You will meet people—­men—­who will tell you no man can keep altogether a rigid straightness in matters that, as you know, I hold important.  You will meet women who will condone this view and tell you that they do not expect it, that men are ‘different,’ and that they would not even have it otherwise.  Do not believe them.  It may be true of some men, though, if they were brought up with other ideals, it would not be true of nearly as many as it is now.  But it will not, I think, be true of you, which is all you are concerned with.  Your very position should make you more scrupulous than most men.  You have had a shock, I know, but has it yet occurred to you to think over the effect your father’s conduct has had on those other lives—­your brothers’ and your sister’s?”

“No,” confessed Ishmael.

“Try.  You are not fond of Archelaus, I know, and there is no reason why you should be.  But try and see his point of view.  He has the attachment to Cloom that you have—­not the same kind; he would never have felt it a trust or something to be made better for its own sake, but he does feel he has a right to it, and that is a hard thing to bear.  Ishmael, all this misery, the reason why your brothers have not been brought up as you have, with the same advantages, which now they can never gain all their lives long, the reason why Vassie, who is clever and pretty, will have a difficulty in getting a husband worthy of her, is because your father lived according to the law of the flesh instead of the spirit.  Never place any child of yours in that position.”

“I never will, I promise.  But, I say, you know, Da Boase”—­the childhood name slipped out unawares—­“I don’t think I care about that sort of thing—­girls and all that.  Not like Killigrew.”

The Parson hid a smile.  “You will not ripen as early as Killigrew, in all probability,” he said, “but one does not have a temper such as yours without other passions.  There is another thing.  Men of the world—­Killigrew, when he is a little older—­will tell you that it is possible and right to gratify those passions at less cost than the embroilment your father made about him.  Casual intercourse where no such question arises....  Do not listen to that either.  If it is possible for you to be one of those who carry an undimmed banner, do.  People often talk as though purity were negative, whereas it is very actual.  Keep it as a beautiful thing that once lost is gone for ever at whatever gain of experience or even understanding.”

“I really don’t want that sort of thing,” persisted Ishmael a little outraged he should not be thought to know best.

“However that may be,” said the Parson, rather sharply, “different by nature or grace, you should never let your difference make you feel superior.  A person who despises or fails to sympathise with all the sorrow and the sin in the lives of others is the worst of sinners.  There are even times when chastity can be very chill and bare, though purity is always lovely.”