fastidiousness of his temperament; the thought of a woman who sold
herself for money could never bring him anything but shuddering. But
all about his lodging-house lived the daughters of the poor, and
these were a snare for his feet. It seemed to him as if this craving
came to a man in regular pulses; he could go for weeks, serene and
happy in his work--and then suddenly would come the restlessness,
and he would go out into the night and wander about the streets for
hours, impelled by a futile yearning for he knew not what--the hope
of something clean in the midst of uncleanliness, of some adventure
that would be not quite shameful to a poet's fancy. And then, after
midnight, he would steal home, baffled and sick at heart, and wet
his pillow with hot and bitter tears!

So unbearable to him was the thought of such perils that he was
impelled to seek his old friend the clergyman, who had lost him over
the ancient Hebrew mythologies, and now won him back by his living
moral force. With much embarrassment and stammering Thyrsis managed
to give a hint of what troubled him; and the man, whose life was
made wholly of love for others, opened his great heart and took
Thyrsis in.

He told him of his own youthful struggle--a struggle which had
resulted in victory, for he had never known a woman. And he put all
the facts before the boy, made clear to him the all-determining
importance of the issue:

"Choose well, your choice is
Brief and yet endless!"

On the one hand was slavery and degradation and disease; and on the