My voyage ought undoubtedly to be considered as an abdication: I am
to all intents and purposes dead in law as a lover; and the lady has
a right to consider her heart as vacant, and to proceed to a new
election.

I claim no more than a share in her esteem and remembrance, which I
dare say I shall never want.

That I have amused myself a little in the dowager way, I am very far
from denying; but you will observe, it was less from taste than the
principle of doing as little mischief as possible in my few excursions
to the world of gallantry. A little deviation from the exact rule of
right we men all allow ourselves in love affairs; but I was willing to
keep as near it as I could. Married women are, on my principles,
forbidden fruit; I abhor the seduction of innocence; I am too
delicate, and (with all my modesty) too vain, to be pleased with venal
beauty: what was I then to do, with a heart too active to be absolutely
at rest, and which had not met with its counterpart? Widows were, I
thought, fair prey, as being sufficiently experienced to take care of
themselves.

I have said married women are, on my principles, forbidden fruit: I
should have explained myself; I mean in England, for my ideas on this
head change as soon as I land at Calais.

Such is the amazing force of local prejudice, that I do not
recollect having ever made love to an English married woman, or a
French unmarried one. Marriages in France being made by the parents,
and therefore generally without inclination on either side, gallantry