Drunkenness was his most frequent sin, but it wasn’t the worst. Every man in England was guilty of drunkenness. He felt guiltier about the hatred, and about the uncleanness. These were sins he had never confessed to, that no one else knew about; they polluted his mind in private. The uncleanness had crept up on him in his youth—a suggestion, an idea. He buried it, ashamed, but the idea kept returning to him. It involved his body, and another’s. It involved—no, he wouldn’t even think it. It flourished like river weed when he gave it his attention. Much better to suppress it until his nuptials
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