accurate, well-chosen sentences went on,
In gentlest of terms, to 'solicit the favor,'
Et cetera, and so on. She couldn't, to save her,
Have been any more condescending; and so
I gratefully reached the decision to go.
And yet my decision was quite a concession,
As I'll have to explain by another digression,
In which, at the cost of some time and chirography,
I'll give you a taste of an autobiography.

And in its beginning, 'tis proper to state
That, somehow, it chanced to be part of my fate
To be born far remote from the populous town,
And therefore, perhaps, I've a spice of the clown.
Be this as it may, I acquired a taste
For joys which, though simple, are equally chaste.
In rural employments expended, my years
Knew not the unnatural pleasures, nor fears,
Which fall to the fortune of one who is bred
Where men on unwholesome excitements are fed,
And horrible vices their poisons distil;
Where Peace, from her home on the verdure-crowned hill,
The whispering grove, or the tapestried mead,
With the bright troop of blessings that follow her lead,
Comes seldom to gladden the wearisome hours,
And raise to new vigor the languishing powers,
But when I arrived at the age of discretion
(I find I must hasten my rambling digression),
With the popular error my mind was deluded
That life is not life from the city excluded;
So I followed the bent of my new inclination,
With the liveliest hopes of improving my station.
'Twas easy deciding, and easy to do it;
'Tis easy, when thinking it over, to rue it.
To Gotham the writer with joy was transported,
Where people in lots, either mixed or assorted,
Are found in abundance, 'kept always on hand,'
Of every conceivable texture and brand;
Exposed at the mart and awaiting their sale,
Like the cotton that lies in the corpulent bale.
A thousand of such may be bought in a trice--
Some dearly, and some at a moderate price.
I mingled among them; I met them on 'Change,
And elsewhere, and surely it isn't so strange
If sometimes, contracting to buy or to sell,
I _should_ be contracting their habits as well.
But, though the temptations about me were rife,
I kept from the perils of 'fash'nable life,'
So that, at the time when my story begins,
I never had placed in the list of my sins
(Though often invited, declining each call)
The crime of attending a party or ball.
For, early in life, I wa