From the time of reading this, I used to think of Christ as 'carrion crucified';--if I ever thought at all. I found out that no one had ever reproached Swinburne for this term,--that it did not interfere with his chances for the Laureateship,--and that not even a priest of the church had been bold-spoken or zealous enough in his Master's cause to publicly resent the shameless outrage. So I concluded that Swinburne must, after all, be right in his opinions, and I followed the lazy and unthinking course of social movement, spending my days with such literature as stored my brain with a complete knowledge of things evil and pernicious. Whatever soul I had in me was killed; the freshness of my mind was gone,--Swinburne, among others, had helped me to live mentally, if not physically, through such a phase of vice as had poisoned my thoughts for ever. I understand there is some vague law in existence about placing an interdiction on certain books considered injurious to public morals,--if there is such a rule, it has been curiously lax concerning the author of 'Anactoria'--who, by virtue of being a poet, passes unquestioned into many a home, carrying impure suggestion into minds that were once cleanly and simple. As for me, after I had studied his verse to my heart's content, nothing remained sacred,--I judged men as beasts and women as little better,--I had no belief in honour, virtue or truth,--and I was absolutely indifferent to all things save one, and that was my resolve to have my own way as far as love was concerned. I might be forced to marry without love for purely money-considerations,--but all the same, love I would have, or what I called love;--not an 'ideal' passion by any means, but precisely what Mr Swinburne and a few of the most-praised novelists of the day had taught me to consider as love. I began to wonder when and how I should meet my lover,--such thoughts as I had at this time indeed would have made moralists stare and uplift their hands in horror,--but to the exterior world I was the very pink and pattern of maidenly decorum, reserve and pride. Men desired, but feared me; for I never gave them any encouragement, seeing as yet none among them whom I deemed worthy of such love as I could give. The majority resembled carefully trained baboons,--respectably clothed and artistically shaven,--but nevertheless all with the spasmodic grin, the leering eye and the uncouth gestures of the hairy woodland monster. When I was just eighteen I 'came out' in earnest--that is, I was presented at Court with all the foolish and farcical pomp practised on such occasions. I was told before going that it was a great and necessary thing to be 'presented,'--that it was a guarantee of position, and above all of reputation,--the Queen