i should fancy he finds quite sufficient for his sins in the muttering of an ave or a i tell you he suffers r and my father struck his hand emphatically on the table � i have studied his nature and i know he has the scholar s mind � the subtle and self disposition which is s a curse to its owner he has behaved like a coward and a villain and he knows it but you � you also have behaved like a coward and a villain and you do not seem to know it no � you are right i responded calmly i do not have you no heart none and i fixed my eyes quietly upon him how should you expect it i gave what heart i had to my wife and she has killed it it is stone dead i forget that it ever existed do not let us talk any more of the matter mon i am perfectly content to leave paris for a time as you suggest � indeed i think the plan an admirable one it will certainly be best that i should remove my presence from you and from all to whom i have suddenly become but before we part i will ask you to remember first � that i have never through all my life given you a moment s cause for pain or reproach � and secondly that in this of a marriage which was to have been the completion of life s happiness for me i am of anything save a desire to just punishment on the of my honour that the only offence you can charge against me is a want of sympathy with a woman who has not only but almost glories in her p with that i saluted him profoundly and left him to his own reflections i had shown no heat � i had displayed no temper � i had stated my case with the logic � the logic of an but once up again in the solitude of my own room with the door shut fast i laughed aloud and bitterly at the and ridiculous wrong with which everybody insisted on the whole affair all the pity was for and yet people would go on about morality judged strictly de had not a shadow of defence on her side but because she was young beautiful and a woman her fate excited sympathy had she been ugly and she might have been and driven from pillar to post till she died of sheer exhaustion for aught any one would have cared i we are most of us ruled by the flesh and the devil and very few of us have any real conception of justice but do not imagine good friends that i a confirmed of want to be moral not i i should win scanty attention from some of you if i did i i only observe to you en that considering how the between vice and virtue are being fast broken down in all great civilized countries how even in eminently virtuous and respectable � women of known character are allowed to enter and mix with the highest aristocratic circles � and how it will most probably soon be necessary to establish in church going london and under the very nose of good mrs a recognized after the fashion of my dear paris � in the face of all these facts i say surely it is time to leave off about dull household virtues � an age of and has no time for them but whatever you think of my opinions � opinions born of blessed � sit in judgment on yourselves my readers before you venture to judge me i believe me i used like many other young men to have my of greatness and goodness the beautiful the the and sublime had attractions for my spirit but the wise green fairy has cured me of this foolishness formerly i loved to read noble poetry i could lose myself in inward communion with the divine spirit of and other grand and true as he � but now now i grin in company with the educated masses over the wit of the cheap paris press � now like un i enjoy a sneer at virtue � now like many of my class who wish to go with the time i fling a stone or a handful of mud at any one to live a and greater life than his fellows i am one of your generation you poor old world � the generation under which you groan as you roll silently on in your fate appointed the generation of brute selfishness and � the generation of the opposed to infinite i please myself in the i live i am to none other and you dear reader whose languid eyes rest carelessly on this printed page � � do not you follow the same wise rule is not your every thought idea and plan however much it may at first seem for the benefit of others really for your own ultimate interest and of course excellent let us then shake hands upon our declared brotherhood � for though you may be and no doubt are highly respectable while i am all together � though you may be everything that society while i am an drinking outcast from polite life a of the and back streets of paris we are both at one � yes my dear friend i assure you � entirely at one � in the worship of self xx h next day i remembered i had a visit to make the de expected me to call upon him before i meant to go of course i had no wish to disappoint him i was prepared for a stormy scene with him i could already picture the haughty old s wounded pride and indignation at the brought on his name � but 