"--"From that moment (he adds) I began to
grow old in my own esteem, and in my esteem age is not estimable. I
took my gradations in the vices with great promptitude, but they were
not to my taste; for my early passions, though violent in the extreme,
were concentrated, and hated division or spreading abroad. I could
have left or lost the whole world with, or for, that which I loved;
but, though my temperament was naturally burning, I could not share in
the common-place libertinism of the place and time without disgust.
And yet this very disgust, and my heart thrown back upon itself, threw
me into excesses perhaps more fatal than those from which I shrunk, as
fixing upon one (at a time) the passions which spread amongst many
would have hurt only myself."
Though, from the causes here alleged, the irregularities he, at this
period, gave way to were of a nature far less gross and miscellaneous
than those, perhaps, of any of his associates, yet, partly from the
vehemence which this concentration caused, and, still more, from that
strange pride in his own errors, which led him always to bring them
forth in the most conspicuous light, it so happened that one single
indiscretion, in his hands, was made to _go farther_, if I may so
express it, than a thousand in those of others. An instance of this,
that occurred about the time of which we are speaking, was, I am
inclined to think, the sole foundation of the mysterious allusions
just cited.
Pages:
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206