nt
admirer of his or her own perfections, enter a room, how perturbed,
restless, and unhappy every individual of the offender's sex instantly
becomes: for them not only enjoyment but tranquillity is over, and if
they could annihilate the unconscious victim of their spleen, I fully
believe no Christian toleration would come in the way of that last
extreme of animosity. For a coxcomb there is no mercy--for a coquet no
pardon. They are, as it were, the dissenters of society--no crime is
too bad to be imputed to them; they do not believe the religion of
others--they set up a deity of their own vanity--all the orthodox
vanities of others are offended. Then comes the bigotry--the stake--the
auto-da-fe of scandal. What, alas! is so implacable as the rage of
vanity? What so restless as its persecution? Take from a man his
fortune, his house, his reputation, but flatter his vanity in each, and
he will forgive you. Heap upon him benefits, fill him with blessings:
but irritate his self-love, and you have made the very best man an
ingrat. He will sting you if he can: you cannot blame him; you yourself
have instilled the venom. This is one reason why you must not always
reckon upon gratitude in conferring an obligation. It is a very high
mind to which gratitude is not a painful sensation. If you wish to
please, you will find it wiser to receive--solicit even--favours, than
accord them; for the vanity of the obliger is always flattered--that of
the obligee rarely.

Well, this is an unforeseen digression: let me return! I had mixed,
of late, very little with the English. My mother's introductions
had procured me the entree of the best French houses; and to them,
therefore, my evenings were usually devoted. Alas! that was a happy
time, when my carriage used to await me at the door of the Rocher de
Cancale, and then whirl me to a succession of visits, varying in their
degree and nature as the whim prompted: now to the brilliant soirees of
Madame De--, or to the appartemens au troisieme of some less celebrated
daughter of dissipation and ecarte;--now to the literary conversaziones
of the Duchesse de D--s, or the Vicomte d'A--, and then to the feverish
excitement of the gambling house. Passing from each with the appetite
for amusement kept alive by variety; finding in none a disappointment,
and in every one a welcome; full of the health which supports, and
the youth which colours all excess or excitation, I drained, with an
unsparing lip