That a man ought to be religious.

And left college with a good smattering of classics and mathematics,
picked up in the intervals of boat-racing and hunting, and much the
same creed as he brought with him, except in regard to the last
article. The scenery-and-natural-history mania was now somewhat at
a discount. He had discovered a new natural object, including in
itself all--more than all--yet found beauties and wonders--woman!

Draw, draw the veil and weep, guardian angel! if such there be.
What was to be expected? Pleasant things were pleasant--there was
no doubt of that, whatever else might be doubtful. He had read
Byron by stealth; he had been flogged into reading Ovid and
Tibullus; and commanded by his private tutor to read Martial and
Juvenal 'for the improvement of his style.' All conversation on the
subject of love had been prudishly avoided, as usual, by his parents
and teacher. The parts of the Bible which spoke of it had been
always kept out of his sight. Love had been to him, practically,
ground tabooed and 'carnal.' What was to be expected? Just what
happened--if woman's beauty had nothing holy in it, why should his
fondness for it? Just what happens every day--that he had to sow
his wild oats for himself, and eat the fruit thereof, and the dirt
thereof also.

O fathers! fathers! and you, clergymen, who monopolise education!
either tell boys the truth about love, or do not put into their
hands, without note or comment, the foul devil's lies about it,
which make up the mass of the Latin poets--and then go, fresh from
teaching Juvenal and Ovid, to declaim at Exeter Hall against poor
Peter Dens's well-meaning prurience! Had we not better take the