In a higher rank of life than that which she held she would have
suffered far less mortification; for I fancy great people pay but
little real attention to externals. Even if a man of rank is vulgar,
it makes no difference in the orbit in which he moves: but your
'genteel gentlewomen' are so terribly dependent upon what Mrs. Tomkins
will say; so very uneasy about their relations and the opinion they
are held in; and, above all, so made up of appearances and clothes; so
undone if they do not eat, drink, and talk a la mode,--that I can
fancy no shame like that of my poor sister at having found, and being
found with, a vulgar brother."

"I saw how unwelcome I was and I did not punish myself by a long
visit. I left her house and returned towards London. On my road, I
again met with my gypsy friends: the warmth of their welcome enchanted
me; you may guess the rest. I stayed with them so long that I could
not bear to leave them; I re-entered their crew: I am one among them.
Not that I have become altogether and solely of the tribe: I still
leave them whenever the whim seizes me, and repair to the great cities
and thoroughfares of man. There I am soon driven back again to my
favourite and fresh fields, as a reed upon a wild stream is dashed
back upon the green rushes from which it has been torn. You perceive
that I have many comforts and distinctions above the rest; for, alas,
sir, there is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth
will not create an aristocracy; the remnant of my fortune provides me
with my unostentatious equipage and the few luxuries it contains; it
repays secretly to the poor what my fellow-vagrants occasionally filch
from them; it allows me to curb among the crew all the grosser and
heavier offences against the law to which want might otherwise compel
them; and it serves to keep up that sway and ascendency which my
superior education and fluent spirits enabled me at first to attain.