FALKLAND.

BOOK I.

FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON.

L---, May --, 1822.

You are mistaken, my dear Monkton! Your description of the gaiety of
"the season" gives me no emotion. You speak of pleasure; I remember no
labour so wearisome; you enlarge upon its changes; no sameness appears to
me so monotonous. Keep, then, your pity for those who require it. From
the height of my philosophy I compassionate you. No one is so vain as a
recluse; and your jests at my hermitship and hermitage cannot penetrate
the folds of a self-conceit, which does not envy you in your suppers at
D---- House, nor even in your waltzes with Eleanor.

It is a ruin rather than a house which I inhabit. I have not been at
L----- since my return from abroad, and during those years the place has
gone rapidly to decay; perhaps, for that reason, it suits me better, _tel
maitre telle maison_.

Of all my possessions this is the least valuable in itself, and derives
the least interest from the associations of childhood, for it was not at
L----- that any part of that period was spent. I have, however, chosen
it from my present retreat, because here only I am personally unknown,