Many persons will call this description low; I do not envy them their
gentility, and have always observed through life (as, to be sure, every
other GENTLEMAN has observed as well as myself) that it is your parvenu
who stickles most for what he calls the genteel, and has the most
squeamish abhorrence for what is frank and natural. Let us pass at once,
however, as all the world must be pleased, to a recital of an affair
which occurred in the very best circles of society, as they are called,
viz, my next unfortunate attachment.

It did not occur for several years after that simple and platonic
passion just described: for though they may talk of youth as the season
of romance, it has always appeared to me that there are no beings in
the world so entirely unromantic and selfish as certain young English
gentlemen from the age of fifteen to twenty. The oldest Lovelace about
town is scarcely more hard-hearted and scornful than they; they ape all
sorts of selfishness and rouerie: they aim at excelling at cricket, at
billiards, at rowing, and drinking, and set more store by a red coat
and a neat pair of top-boots than by any other glory. A young fellow
staggers into college chapel of a morning, and communicates to all his
friends that he was "so CUT last night," with the greatest possible
pride. He makes a joke of having sisters and a kind mother at home who
loves him; and if he speaks of his father, it is with a knowing sneer to
say that he has a tailor's and a horse-dealer's bill that will surprise
"the old governor." He would be ashamed of being in love. I, in common
with my kind, had these affectations, and my perpetual custom of smoking
added not a little to my reputation as an accomplished roue. What came
of this custom in the army and at college, the reader has already heard.
Alas! in life it went no better with me, and many pretty chances I had
went off in that accursed smoke.