Part 51 (1/2)

I endeavoured to obey these ad my remissness to Lady Bray I recovered my temper, became attentive, talked rather pleasantly, and re-established races: in which I could perceive I had somewhat declined, by the folly of my behaviour To reress of intellect, and the benefits derived from experience, would be to weary his patience, insult his understanding, and counteract my own intentions It would suppose in hi Yet to be entirely silent ine I had in the beginning proposed a otten, abandoned, or had not the power to execute If such will attend to the alteration in my conduct, they will perceive that I, like every other hu, could not but reflect more or less on the motives that actuated h rooted habits and violent passions were the most difficult to cure

After the curtain dropped, I acco the throng, at some little distance, Olivia, and her aunt, attended by the peer

I had foreseen the possibility of this; and had reasoned that there er in an abrupt rencontre, of this kind, than inOlivia and her terrible aunt at the house of Lady Bray's friend, as her ladyshi+p had promised me; where I should receive her countenance, and that of the family to which I should be introduced

I therefore endeavoured to direct her ladyshi+p's attention from the place where the Mowbray party was, and succeeded in my endeavours

Soon afterward, I saw Hector, with a knot of fashi+onable youths; a whom I was rather surprised to discover my at that time unknown father-in-law, Belroupe; and, as Lady Bray's carriage was presently afterward _stopping the way_, I had the good fortune to escape unperceived, or at least unaccosted, by both parties

CHAPTER VII

_A debt discharged: A tavern dinner and a dissertation: Thethe man of virtue: or, is honesty the best policy?

Fools pay for being flattered: Security essential to happiness: A triumphant retort, and difficult to be answered: Vice inevitable, under a vitiated systeerous attack: or an exhibition of one of the principal arts of a gambler: A few cant phrases_

To the friendshi+p of Mr Evelyn I had so far subjected myself and the spirit of independence which I was very properly ambitious to cherish as, for the present, to accept the aid he was so desirous to bestow

I was so to be the debtor of any other man on earth; and, as he had enabled me to appear in the style I have described, and furnished me with e the debt which his bounty had conferred; after he had previously plundered me, at Bath

He had sunk in ambler: but I remembered this action as that which it really was; an effort of benevolence, to aid a hu in distress

Thus actuated, I went the next day to the billiard-table which he had been accustomed to frequent; where I once more found hi like cordiality He had so accustoratification is the law of nature,' and had so confused a sense of what true self-gratification is, with such an active faculty of perverting facts and exhibiting pictures of general turpitude, that he had very little sense of the vice of his own conduct; and was therefore very little subject to self-reproof He behaved to ood humour; and, when his ether at the Thatched-house

For ahiuards, and people of whose co where and how I had seen hi hesitate Beside which, I was proave, but by an increase of curiosity to be better acquainted ho and what he really was

As soon as ere alone, I discharged ave occasion to the following dialogue

'I perceive, Trevor, you are still the sas Had it been a debt of honour indeed, I should not have been surprised: for those are debts that ed

Otherwise, it would introduce a very inconvenient practice indeed'

'I believe, as you say, it would be inconvenient beyond description to you--What do you call yourselves?--Oh! I recollect: ”sporting gentlemen” is the phrase It would be inconvenient I say, to you sporting gentleentles, rooks, Grecians, and other pleasant epithets Soue You reh you are toobeen duped toof resentment That is natural: but it is foolish'

'Is it foolish to have a sense of right and wrong?'

'Where is that sense to be found? Who has it? I have continually a sense, if so you please to call it, that there is so which I want; and by that I am impelled to act'

'True But Locke, I think, tells us that cri sufficient ti his pardon, wise as in a certain sense I allow you this Locke was, in the instance you have cited, he was an ass If I do not mistake, he has before proved to me that I cannot act without a motive; and then he bids me stop when I am in such a hurry that noto this, an actual uilty man than he who only dreams that he commits murder?'

'Make what you will of the inference, but it is accurate They are both dead asleep, to any ideas except those that hurry thelish, there is no such thing as vice'

'Might you not as well have said as virtue?'