He went out for long walks, hoping by exercise to throw off the gloom and horror which were thickening in his brain.  He sought vainly to arrive at some certain opinions concerning his poems, and he weighed every line, not now for cadence and colour, but with a view of determining their ethical tendencies; and this poor torn soul stood trembling on the verge of fearful abyss of unreason and doubt.

And when he walked in the streets, London appeared a dismal, phantom city.  The tall houses vanishing in darkness, the unending noise, the sudden and vague figures passing; some with unclean gaze, others in mysterious haste, the courtesans springing from hansoms and entering their restaurant, lurking prostitutes, jocular lads, and alleys suggestive of crime.  All and everything that is city fell violently upon his mind, jarring it, and flashing over his brow all the horror of delirium.  His pace quickened, and he longed for wings to rise out of the abominable labyrinth.

At that moment a gable of a church rose against the sky.  The gates were open, and one passing through seemed to John like an angel, and obeying the instinct which compels the hunted animal to seek refuge in the earth, he entered, and threw himself on his knees.  Relief came, and the dread about his heart was loosened in the romantic twilight.  One poor woman knelt amid the chairs; presently she rose and went to the confessional.  He waited his turn, his eyes fixed on the candles that burned in the dusky distance.

“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned!”

The priest, an old man of gray and shrivelled mien, settled his cassock and mumbled some Latin.

“I have come to ask your advice, father, rather than to confess the sins I have committed in the last week.  Since I have come to live in London I have been drawn into the society of the dissolute and the impure.”

“And you have found that your faith and your morals are being weakened by association with these men?”

“I have to thank God that I am uninfluenced by them.  Their society presents no attractions for me, but I am engaged in literary pursuits, and most of the young men with whom I am brought in contact lead unclean and unholy lives.  I have striven, and have in some measure succeeded, in enforcing respect for my ideals; never have I countenanced indecent conversation, although perhaps I have not always set as stern a face against it as I might have.”

“But you have never joined in it?”

“Never.  But, father, I am on the eve of the publication of a volume of poems, and I am grievously afflicted with scruples lest their tendency does not stand in agreement with the teaching of our holy Church.”

“Do you fear their morality, my son?”

“No, no!” said John in an agitated voice, which caused the old man to raise his eyes and glance inquiringly at his penitent; “the poem I am most fearful of is a philosophic poem based on Schopenhauer.”