Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/59

 Britain,—and the author's every hope of place and preferment in the Established Church perished beyond all expectation of resurrection: for him there was no "benefit of the clergy." It was a pitiful immolation, because a self-immolation. As Carlyle grimly told Froude—he should have "burned his own smoke."

The Nemesis of Faith is not a wholesome book to read, because it is not the doubt that is born of mental and therefore spiritual health. One need only read Froude's previous publication, The Shadows of the Clouds, to discover the morbid mind. The Nemesis of Faith is wholly destructive—and in such high matters it is so fatally easy to destroy—it has not the shadow of an endeavor to provide a shelter for the soul: that is left naked, houseless, and homeless to