Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/17

Rh biggest and handsomest boy in the Institution ; and if I was handsomer now than then, I concluded, much to my satisfaction, I must be a tolerably good looking fellow. A woman who can make a shy, awkward man once feel easy in her company, can do any thing with him. But if she can add to this, the miracle of making him satisfied with himself, his happiness and devotion will be complete. From feeling perfectly easy in her society, I soon began to be very uneasy. I began to be in love, and a shy man in love is as great a torment to a woman as he is to himself, if she cares any thing about him. I certainly was something of an original in my amour; for while I used as much pains to hide, as others do to display their love, I took it into my head that the lady ought to behave as if I were an accepted lover, and eschew all the rest of mankind. I was affronted with her three times a week, for some imaginary display of indifference ; became inordinately jealous ; and I confess honestly, played such capricious pranks, that, had she not been the best tempered creature in the world, she would have forbidden me her presence. Yet she treated me with a charming indulgence, humoured my follies, and forgave my insolent irritability sooner than I could forgive myself. Three several times I swore to myself I would confess my love, and ask her hand, and as often did the fates interpose to prevent me-once in the shape of a rainy day, which I thought a good excuse for delay; once in the likeness of a hole in my silk stocking, which I observed just as I was onthe point of knocking at the door, and which so damped my spirits that I turned about and went home disconsolate ; and a third time in the semblance of one of those worthy persons, who lend their wits to such as have money, and let them into the secret of turning it to the best advantage. He propounded to me a speculation, by which a fortune would be made, as certain as fate, in three months at farthest.

To tell my readers a secret, the management of my property, although of great advantage to my health, had redounded very little to the credit of my sagacity, or the benefit of my purse. Knowingnothingofbusiness myself, I took the advice of as many people as I could, remembering that in a multitude of counsellors there is safety. Some how or other it happened, however, that though the advice was always good when it was given, it turned out always bad in the end, owing to those unexpected revolutions with which Providence so often shames human sagacity, as if in scorn of the puny prophets, who pretend to say what will happen to-morrow. By degrees these repeated