"The trade-diseases of the urban working-man seemed to be transmitted; here one saw in miniature the lungs and the blood of the gas-worker, ruined through sulphurous fumes; the shoulders and flattened feet of the smith; the brain of the painter, atrophied through the fumes of varnish and poisonous paints; the scrofulous eruption of the sweep; the contracted chest of the bookbinder; here one heard the echo of the cough of the metal-worker and the asphalt manufacturer; smelt the poisons of the wall-paper maker; noticed the watchmaker's myopia in new editions. In truth, this was not a race which possessed the future, or upon which the future could reckon, and it cannot reproduce itself for any length of time, for the ranks of the artisans are constantly recruited from the country." His sympathy with the working classes was no passing sentiment; it was the lasting keynote of his plea for social justice which is clearly heard through the cacophony of some of his later outbursts against the social order. Rebellious, contempt of current morals and respectability rose as a mighty force in the mind of this extraordinary schoolmaster. His morning duties at the board-school and his afternoon work as private tutor to the daughters of a well-to-do and refined family compelled him to outward decorum. But he did not live virtuously. His sense-life was awake, and he recognised no necessity for restraint. The strivings after ascetic peace which filled his adolescence had been laid aside; with the breaking of his faith in the watchful solicitude of Jesus, natural impulses had been set free. His autobiography records his early struggles, and his later "fall" with the same detached imperturbability. He lacks the sense of shame which avoids certain topics. He observes no reticences. The pages in many of his books are studded with coarse language and unsavoury references to physical life. The sexual cynicism which pervades the story of his life is only relieved by his perfect sincerity. He describes the pleasures of inebriation with similar frankness. At the age of nineteen he was already familiar with Bacchic revels. His brain was inflamed with ideas, congested with unformulated thought. The narcosis of alcohol attracted him.