Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/54

 his cruel usage, which made him feel all his old troubles over again. He had no ambition, nor any delight in grandeur. The only use he had for money was to serve his friends; but when he reflected how difficult it was to meet with a person who deserved that name, and how hard it would be for him ever to believe any one sincere, having been so much deceived, he thought nothing in life could be any great good to him again. He spent whole days in thinking on this subject, wishing he could meet with a human creature capable of friendship: by which word he meant so perfect a union oi minds, that each should consider himself but as a part of one entire being; a little community, as it were, of two, to the happiness oi which all the actions of both should tend, with an absolute disregard of any selfish or separate interest. This was the phantom, the idol of his soul's admiration. In the worship of which he at length grew such an enthusiast, that he was in this point only as mad as Quixote himself could be with knight-errantry; and after much amusing himself with the deepest ruminations on this subject, in which a fertile imagination raised a thousand pleasing images to itself, he at length took the oddest, most unaccountable resolution, that ever was heard of, viz., to travel through the whole world, rather than not meet with a real friend. From the time he lived with his brother, he had led so recluse a life, that he in a manner had shut himself up from the world; but yet when he reflected that the customs and manners of nations relate chiefly to ceremonies, and have nothing to do with the hearts of men; he concluded, he could sooner enter into the characters of men in the great metropolis where he lived, than if he went into foreign countries; where, not understanding the languages so readily, it would be more difficult to find out the