The Change Of My Looks, From Youth To Manhood, And The Change Of My
Circumstances, Prevented Them From Recognizing Me.
They could not
suspect, in the dashing young buck, fashionably dressed, and driving
his own equipage, their former comrade, the painted beau, with old
peaked hat and long, flimsy, sky-blue coat.
My heart yearned with
kindness towards Columbine, and I was glad to see her establishment a
thriving one. As soon as the harness was adjusted, I tossed a small
purse of gold into her ample bosom; and then, pretending give my horses
a hearty cut of the whip, I made the lash curl with a whistling about
the sleek sides of ancient Harlequin. The horses dashed off like
lightning, and I was whirled out of sight, before either of the parties
could get over their surprise at my liberal donations. I have always
considered this as one of the greatest proofs of my poetical genius. It
was distributing poetical justice in perfection.
I now entered London en cavalier, and became a blood upon town. I
took fashionable lodgings in the West End; employed the first tailor;
frequented the regular lounges; gambled a little; lost my money
good-humoredly, and gained a number of fashionable good-for-nothing
acquaintances. Had I had more industry and ambition in my nature, I
might have worked my way to the very height of fashion, as I saw many
laborious gentlemen doing around me. But it is a toilsome, an anxious,
and an unhappy life; there are few beings so sleepless and miserable as
your cultivators of fashionable smiles.
I was quite content with that kind of society which forms the frontiers
of fashion, and may be easily taken possession of. I found it a light,
easy, productive soil. I had but to go about and sow visiting cards,
and I reaped a whole harvest of invitations. Indeed, my figure and
address were by no means against me. It was whispered, too, among the
young ladies, that I was prodigiously clever, and wrote poetry; and the
old ladies had ascertained that I was a young gentleman of good family,
handsome fortune, and "great expectations."
I now was carried away by the hurry of gay life, so intoxicating to a
young man; and which a man of poetical temperament enjoys so highly on
his first tasting of it. That rapid variety of sensations; that whirl
of brilliant objects; that succession of pungent pleasures. I had no
time for thought; I only felt. I never attempted to write poetry; my
poetry seemed all to go off by transpiration. I lived poetry; it was
all a poetical dream to me. A mere sensualist knows nothing of the
delights of a splendid metropolis. He lives in a round of animal
gratifications and heartless habits. But to a young man of poetical
feelings it is an ideal world; a scene of enchantment and delusion; his
imagination is in perpetual excitement, and gives a spiritual zest to
every pleasure.
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