“And, oh! the horror of seeing and recognizing a look of rebuke and repulsion in the eyes of those I love and those who love me. To see the smile of pride vanish and the blush of mortification succeed it on the face of that being of all the world to me the dearest and fairest.” “Last night in my dear Lucy’s eyes I read reproof, rebuke, and on her cheeks I saw the red flag of shame. Cognizant of the cause, I, like a leaf upon the current of some mighty cataract, helpless, rushed along in humiliation and self-disgust. I beat against the stream with all my remaining strength of mind; I struggled to regain the shore of my accustomed dignity, but all in vain.” “I was carried on and on, until plunging over the brink of the fall I struck the bottom where lie those self-respect destroying rocks of disgrace. In ignominy I fled and sought refuge here; ceasing my unavailing efforts to break the chain that held me I gave free rein to the influences that governed my mood.” “Wild and ribald songs burst from my lips, hilarious and lascivious music poured from the instruments that I touched, movements, rythmic but novel, fantastic, barbarous, jerked my limbs about in the measure of some savage dance. I ate and drank more as an untutored tribesman of the jungle than a civilized citizen of our cultured country.” “All unrestrained and unopposed that mystifying mood bore me on recklessly, abandoned, until it swept me to the very verge of wickedness and sin. On the extremist edge of that precipice, below which lies the gulf of infamy, I found strength to grasp and hold the feeble tendrils of that higher estate that still clung around me; in every fiber of my being there surged Satanic suggestions to relinquish my hold upon the fragile stay to which I desperately clung, and take the plunge into that dark gulf below.” “Go where base associates await you! Where lewdness, lasciviousness, brutality, beastliness and licensed libidinousness lead to savage satiety that ends in blood. These were the suggestive words whispered to me by that fiendish spirit of these strange spells. They vibrated through every nerve and vein of my racked and straining being.” “Thank God! I still had power of soul sufficient to resist, but Lord! how long shall I be enabled to avert that which is seemingly my doom?” Burton arose and for several minutes walked about the apartment with agitated, nervous tread. Passing before a long mirror that stood between the windows, he stopped suddenly before it, gazed intently at his image reflected there, and cried out: “The reflection there tells me that I appear to be as other men around me. In stature and features I seem not essentially at variance with the average man I meet, perhaps I am even more comely. What then is it that caused me to fall shamefaced, embarrassed and simpering like a silly school boy, before the scrutiny of that old scholar last night?”