time I felt the vanity so natural
to youth when I went up to London to enjoy the resources of the Capital,
and to display the powers I possessed to revel in whatever those
resources could yield. I found society like the Jewish temple: any one
is admitted into its threshold; none but the chiefs of the institution
into its recesses.

Young, rich, of an ancient and honourable name, pursuing pleasure rather
as a necessary excitement than an occasional occupation, and agreeable
to the associates I drew around me because my profusion contributed
to their enjoyment, and my temper to their amusement--I found myself
courted by many, and avoided by none. I soon discovered that all
civility is but the mask of design. I smiled at the kindness of the
fathers who, hearing that I was talented, and knowing that I was rich,
looked to my support in whatever political side they had espoused. I saw
in the notes of the mothers their anxiety for the establishment of their
daughters, and their respect for my acres; and in the cordiality of the
sons who had horses to sell and rouge-et-noir debts to pay, I detected
all that veneration for my money which implied such contempt for its
possessor. By nature observant, and by misfortune sarcastic, I looked
upon the various colourings of society with a searching and philosophic
eye: I unravelled the intricacies which knit servility with arrogance
and meanness with ostentation; and I traced to its sources that
universal vulgarity of inward sentiment and external manner, which,
in all classes, appears to me to constitute the only unvarying
characteristic of our countrymen. In proportion as I increased my
knowledge of others, I shrunk with a deeper disappointment and dejection
into my own resources. The first moment of real happiness which I
experienced for a whole year was when I found myself about to seek,
beneath the influence of other skies, that more extended acquaintance
with my species which might either draw me to them with a closer
connection, or at last reconcile me to the ties which already existed.

I will not dwell upon my adventures abroad: there is little to interest
others in a recital which awakens no interest in one's self. I sought
for wisdom, and I acquired but knowledge. I thirsted for the truth, the
tenderness of love, and I found but its fever and its falsehood. Like
the two Florimels of Spenser, I mistook, in my delirium, the delusive
fabrication of the senses for the divine rea