My mother, I believe, now saw that it would not do, at least for the
present; but she had known many of Cupid's capricious turns. Lady Anne was
extremely pretty, and universally allowed to be so; her ladyship was much
taken notice of in public, and my mother knew that young men are vain of
having their mistresses and wives admired by our sex. But my mother
calculated ill as to my particular character. To the Opera and to Ranelagh,
to the Pantheon, and to all the fashionable public places of the day, I had
had the honour of attending Lady Anne; and I had had the glory of hearing
"Beautiful!" "Who is she?"--and "Who is with her?" My vanity, I own, had
been flattered, but no further. My imagination was always too powerful, my
passions too sincere and too romantic, to be ruled by the opinions of
others, or to become the dupe of personal vanity. My mother had fancied
that a month or two in London would have brought my imagination down to be
content with the realities of fashionable life. My mother was right as to
the fact, but wrong in her conclusion. This did not incline me more towards
Lady Anne, but it disinclined me towards marriage.

My exalted ideas of love were lowered--my morning visions of life fled--I
was dispirited.

Mowbray had rallied me on my pining for Cambridge, and on preferring Israel
Lyons, the Jew, to him and all the best company in London.

He had hurried me about with him to all manner of gaieties, but still I was
not happy; my mind--my heart wanted something more.

In this my London life, I found it irksome that I could never, as at dear
Cambridge, pause upon my own reflections. If I stopped awhile, "to plume
contemplation's wings, so ruffled and impaired," some of the low realities,