Churchmen, are not The World, what is? I don't complain of them,
though; Puritanism has interdicted to them all art, all excitement,
all amusement--except money-making. It is their dernier ressort,
poor souls!

'But you must explain to us naughty fox-hunters how all this agrees
with the good book. We see plainly enough, in the meantime, how it
agrees with "poor human nature." We see that the "religious world,"
like the "great world," and the "sporting world," and the "literary
world,"


"Compounds for sins she is inclined to,
By damning those she has no mind to;"


and that because England is a money-making country, and money-making
is an effeminate pursuit, therefore all sedentary and spoony sins,
like covetousness, slander, bigotry, and self-conceit, are to be
cockered and plastered over, while the more masculine vices, and no-
vices also, are mercilessly hunted down by your cold-blooded, soft-
handed religionists.

'This is a more quiet letter than usual from me, my dear coz, for
many of your reproofs cut me home: they angered me at the time; but
I deserve them. I am miserable, self-disgusted, self-helpless,
craving for freedom, and yet crying aloud for some one to come and
guide me, and teach me; and WHO IS THERE IN THESE DAYS WHO COULD
TEACH A FAST MAN, EVEN IF HE WOULD TRY? Be sure, that as long as
you and yours make piety a synonym for unmanliness, you will never