To-morrow I shall breathe the air of intrigue, shall hear footsteps of spies behind me wherever I go; shall know that even the roses in the garden have ears; that the ground under my feet will telegraph my thoughts.

Shall I be true?
Shall I at last whisper, and follow, and evade, believe in no one, much less in myself, steal in and out of men's confidences to use them for my own purposes?
Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation or of the daily pressure of the life around him?
what powers of resistance are in his soul?
how long the vital energy will continue to throw off the never-ending seduction, the freshening force of evil?
Therein lies the power of evil, that it is ever new, ever fortified by continuous conquest and achievements.

It has the rare fire of aggression; is ever more upon the offence than upon the defence; has, withal, the false lure of freedom from restraint, the throbbing force of sympathy.
"Such things I dreamed not of in Soolsby's but upon the hill, Faith, though, indeed, that seemed a time of trial and sore-heartedness.
How large do small issues seem till we have faced the momentous things! It is true that the larger life has pleasures and expanding capacities; but it is truer still that it has perils, events which try the soul as it is never tried in the smaller life--unless, indeed, the soul be that of the Epicurean.

The Epicurean I well understand, and in his way I might have walked with a wicked grace.
I have in me some hidden depths of luxury, a secret heart of pleasure, an understanding for the forbidden thing.

I could have walked the broad way with a laughing heart, though, in truth, habit of mind and desire have kept me in the better path.