her to myself, pale and sorrowful, and brooding over my image; but
gay, dissipated, the dispenser of smiles, the prototype of joy. I
contrasted this account of her with the melancholy and gloom of my own
feelings, and I resented her seeming happiness as an insult to myself.

In this angry and fretful mood I returned to London. My empire was
soon resumed; and now, Linden, comes the most sickening part of my
confessions. Vanity is a growing and insatiable disease: what seems
to its desires as wealth to-day, to-morrow it rejects as poverty. I
was at first contented to know that I was beloved; by degrees, slow,
yet sure, I desired that others should know it also. I longed to
display my power over the celebrated and courted Lady Merton; and to
put the last crown to my reputation and importance. The envy of
others is the food of our own self-love. Oh, you know not, you dream
not, of the galling mortifications to which a proud woman, whose love
commands her pride, is subjected! I imposed upon Caroline the most
humiliating, the most painful trials; I would allow her to see none
but those I pleased; to go to no place where I withheld my consent;
and I hesitated not to exert and testify my power over her affections,
in proportion to the publicity of the opportunity.

Yet, with all this littleness, would you believe that I loved Caroline
with the most ardent and engrossing passion? I have paused behind
her, in order to kiss the ground she trod on; I have stayed whole
nights beneath her window, to catch one glimpse of her passing form,
even though I had spent hours of the daytime in her society; and,
though my love burned and consumed me like a fire, I would not breathe
a single wish against her innocence, or take advantage of my power to
accomplish what I knew from her virtue and pride no atonement could
possibly repay. Such are the inconsistencies of the heart, and such,