roues, contracted a certain--not exactly grossierete--but want of
refinement--a certain coarseness of expression and idea which, though
slight, and easily thrown off, took in some degree from my approach to
that character which I wished to become. I know nothing which would so
polish the manners as continental intercourse, were it not for the
English debauches with which that intercourse connects one. English
profligacy is always coarse, and in profligacy nothing is more contagious
than its tone. One never keeps a restraint on the manner when one
unbridles the passions, and one takes from the associates with whom the
latter are indulged, the air and the method of the indulgence.

I was, the reader well knows, too solicitous for improvement, not to be
anxious to escape from such chances of deterioration, and I therefore
consoled myself with considerable facility for the pleasures and the
associates I was about to forego. My mind being thus relieved from all
regret at my departure, I now suffered it to look forward to the
advantages of my return to England. My love of excitement and variety
made an election, in which I was to have both the importance of the
contest and the certainty of the success, a very agreeable object of
anticipation.

I was also by this time wearied with my attendance upon women, and eager
to exchange it for the ordinary objects of ambition to men; and my vanity
whispered that my success in the one was no unfavourable omen of my
prosperity in the other. On my return to England, with a new scene and a
new motive for conduct, I resolved that I would commence a different
character to that I had hitherto assumed. How far I kept this resolution
the various events hereafter to be shown, will testify. For myself, I
felt that I was now about to enter a more crowded scene upon a more
elevated ascent; and my previous experience of human nature was