"I doubt sometimes (he says, in his 'Detached Thoughts,') whether,
after all, a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me; yet I
sometimes long for it. My earliest dreams (as most boys' dreams are)
were martial; but a little later they were all for _love_ and
retirement, till the hopeless attachment to M---- C---- began and
continued (though sedulously concealed) _very_ early in my teens; and
so upwards for a time. _This_ threw me out again 'alone on a wide,
wide sea.' In the year 1804 I recollect meeting my sister at General
Harcourt's, in Portland Place. I was then _one thing_, and _as_ she
had always till then found me. When we met again in 1805 (she told me
since) that my temper and disposition were so completely altered, that
I was hardly to be recognised. I was not then sensible of the change;
but I can believe it, and account for it."
I have already described his parting with Miss Chaworth previously to
her marriage. Once again, after that event, he saw her, and for the
last time,--being invited by Mr. Chaworth to dine at Annesley not long
before his departure from England. The few years that had elapsed
since their last meeting had made a considerable change in the
appearance and manners of the young poet. The fat, unformed schoolboy
was now a slender and graceful young man. Those emotions and passions
which at first heighten, and then destroy, beauty, had as yet produced
only their favourable effects on his features; and, though with but
little aid from the example of refined society, his manners had
subsided into that tone of gentleness and self-possession which more
than any thing marks the well-bred gentleman.
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