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244 from those common ones whence arise the routine of human action, is censured as romance or eccentricity,—the appellation of enthusiast might be given to him, in seeking, as might be supposed, to soar and exalt himself above the rest of humanity; but surely not, he hoped, by his Lordship, or others whose esteem alone was of real value to him: and wherefore desire the commendations of the multitude?

His life was for the future to be spent in a manner wholly different from the past; he must therefore renounce the general applause of the world, and live only for the silent approval of his own conscience. His Lordship might indeed seek to raise his vanity by allusions to the disproportioned marriage he was about forming; but, with no heart to bestow on any of the sex, his affections entombed, how could he come forward, and feel himself entitled to make proposals to any, under other circumstances than those which connected him with Miss Airey? Self-love had received in Douglas one of its greatest and most mortifying wounds; and it was under a sense of the deserved humiliation inflicted upon him, that he now, reflected. In opposition to the indulgences of sense he had given into, he possessed a mind formed to make sacrifices; and it was the effect of such meditations,