Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/54

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38
SPRING YEARNINGS.

'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 convert either me or any other good sportsman.'

'By the bye, my dear fellow, was I asleep or awake when I seemed to read in the postscript of your last letter, something about being driven to Rome after all?' . . . . . Why thither, of all places in heaven or earth? You know, I have no party interest in the question. All creeds are very much