have no visitants, and though
frequently abroad, or at least secluded from me, had never proposed
my introduction to any of his friends, except Mrs. Benington. My
obligations to him were already too great to allow me to lay claim to
new favours and indulgences, nor, indeed, was my disposition such as
to make society needful to my happiness. My character had been, in some
degree, modelled by the faculty which I possessed. This deriving all
its supposed value from impenetrable secrecy, and Ludloe's admonitions
tending powerfully to impress me with the necessity of wariness and
circumspection in my general intercourse with mankind, I had gradually
fallen into sedate, reserved, mysterious, and unsociable habits. My
heart wanted not a friend.

In this temper of mind, I set myself to examine the novelties which
Ludloe's private book-cases contained. 'Twill be strange, thought I, if
his favourite volume do not show some marks of my friend's character. To
know a man's favourite or most constant studies cannot fail of letting
in some little light upon his secret thoughts, and though he would not
have given me the reading of these books, if he had thought them capable
of unveiling more of his concerns than he wished, yet possibly my
ingenuity may go one step farther than he dreams of. You shall judge
whether I was right in my conjectures.

Chapter IX.

The books which composed this little library were chiefly the voyages
and travels of the missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Added to these were some works upon political economy and
legislation. Those writers who have amused themselves with reducing
their ideas to practice, and drawing imaginary pictures of nations or
republics, whose manners or government came up to their standard of
excellence, were, all of whom I had ever heard, and some I had never
heard of before, to be found in this collection. A translation of
Aristotle's republic, the political romances of sir Thomas Moore,
Harrington, and Hume, appeared to have been much read, and Ludlow had
not been sparing of his marginal comments. In these writers he appeared
to find nothing but error and absurdity; and his notes were introduced
for no other end than to point out groundless principles and false
conclusions..... The style of these remarks was already familiar to
me. I saw nothing new in them, or different from the strain of those
speculations with which Ludlow was accustomed to indulge hims