foolish pride would never before let me mention to her that a fellow,
like him, could oblige me to put up the sword I had drawn in anger. Nor
can I now tell why I did not run him through, the instant he dared to
interfere!

I cut a cursed ridiculous figure! But the youth is running up a long
score, which I foresee he will shortly be obliged to discharge. Damn
him! I cannot think of him with common patience! I know not why I ever
mention his name!

I have raised another nest of wasps about my ears. The French fops,
here, all buzz and swarm around her; each making love to her, with all
the shrugs, grimaces, and ready made raptures of which he is master;
and to which I am obliged patiently to listen, or shew myself an ass.
These fellows submit to every kind of monopoly, except of woman; and to
pretend an exclusive right to her is, in their opinion, only worthy of
a barbarian. But the most forward and tormenting of them all is my
quondam friend, the Count; who is half a lunatic, but of so diverting a
kind that, ere a man has time to be angry, he either cuts a caper,
utters an absurdity, or acts some mad antic or other, that sets gravity
at defiance.

Not that any man, who had the smallest pretensions to common sense,
could be jealous, either of him or any one of these apes. And yet
jealous I am! My dotage, Fairfax, is come very suddenly upon me; and
neither you, nor any one of the spirited fellows, whose company I used
to delight in, can despise me half so much as I despise myself--A
plebeian!--A--! I could drink gall, eat my elbows, renounce all my
gods, and turn Turk!--Ay, laugh if you will; what care I?--I have
taken a turn into the park, in search of a little cool air and common