Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/311

Rh upon all manner of subjects, more than perhaps any man in England. And this is it which a person of great honour in Ireland (who was pleased to stoop so low as to look into my mind) used to tell me, that my mind was like a conjured spirit, that would do mischief if I would not give it employment. It is this humour that makes me so busy, when I am in company, to turn all that way; and since it commonly ends in talk, whether it be love, or conversation, it is all alike. This is so common, that I could remember twenty women in my life, to whom I have behaved myself just the same way; and, I profess, without any other design than that of entertaining myself when I am very idle, or when something goes amiss in my affairs. This I always have done as a man of the world, when I had no design for any thing grave in it, and what I thought at worst a harmless impertinence; but, whenever I begin to take sober resolutions, or, as now, to think of entering into the church, I never found it would be hard to put off this kind of folly at the porch. Besides, perhaps, in so general a conversation among that sex, I might pretend a little to understand where I am when I am going to choose for a wife; and, though the cunning sharper of the town may have a cheat put on him, yet it must be cleanlier carried than this, which you think I am going to top upon myself. And truly, if you knew how metaphysical I am that way, you would little fear I should venture on one who has given so much occasion to tongues: for, though the people is a lying sort of beast (and I think in Leicester above all parts that I was in) yet they seldom talk without some glimpse Rh