Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/344

 322 RITISH PHYSICIANS. tary fireside, too indisposed to relish even the innocent pursuits which single men depend on for amusement, too thoroughly convinced that gaiety, as it is commonly called, is incapable of affording me pleasure, too disposed to look to the pursuits of knowledge, and the endearments of affection for my happiness in this world. At present, however, unless I am much mistaken, an attachment would not be desirable for me. Mine is an anxious disposition — more given to fear than to hope. During the last year, it is true, I have scarcely known what fear is, but this I refer not to any change in my character, but to an alteration in my circumstances — for although I have become an adventurer, and thrown myself in the way of difficulties, I have always been encou- raged by the thought that even if I failed, my failure would injure no one but myself Notwith- standing the unexpected degree of my success, I am still an adventurer, and shall feel myself to be so until I have gained an income equal to my ex- penses. You will smile perhaps at the apprelien- siveness of my nature, but such it is, and so far from my being able to mend it, I believe the less I think of it the better it becomes. No domestic enjoyments would compensate to me for pecuniary anxieties. As long as there remains the slightest uncertainty about my success, so long had I better remain single, not only in fact but in feeling. As soon as I have gained a competent income (which, by the by, becomes the more necessary because I may chance to marry a woman without a.fortune, for I shall certainly choose my second wife from the same feelings which led me to my first) when