The
remaining week I stayed I did nothing but craze the faculties of my
soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of
my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this
modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless.
I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was enlarged
with the very important addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's works; I
had seen human nature in a new phasis; and I engaged several of my
school-fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This
improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by
the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly. I
kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison
between them and the composition of most of my correspondents
flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I hid not
three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post
brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of
the day-book and ledger.
My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
_Vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle_, were my sole principles of
action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great
pleasure; Sterne and Mackenzie--Tristram Shandy and the Man of Feeling
were my bosom favourites.
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