fine, there it is, and he must go

over it."

The old man perceives the Count's preference for me: it makes him angry. When I am prefent, he takes every opportunity to depreciate the Count: I naturally take up his defence, and that encreases his dif pleasure. Yesterday I was well aware that when he aimed a stroke at my friend, he meant that it should also hit me." For the common affairs of the world," faid he," the Count may do very well; his ftyle is good, and he writes with facility; but, like other great geniufes, he has no folid learning." I longed to ftrike him;

for

for to what purpose is argument with fuch a kind of animal? However, as that was not poffible, I answered, with fome warmth, that every refpect was due to him, both for his understanding and his character; that he was the only man I had ever met with, whose extenfive genius raised him fo high above the common level, and who yet retained all his activity in business. This was algebra to his conceptions; and I withdrew, leaft fome new abfurdity in him fhould raise my choler too much. It is you that are the authors of my ill-fortune; you, all of you, who forced me to bend my neck to

&

་ ་་

this

this yoke, and preached activity to me. If the man who plants potatoes, and carries them to town on market-days, is not a more active being than I am, then let me work ten years longer at the curfed galley to which I am now chained.

Distaste and laffitude, thofe fashionable miferies which reign amongst the filly people who affect an unmixt fociety; the ambition of rank! how they toil, how they watch to gain precedence! What poor and contemptible paffions, and how plain to be seen! We have a woman here, for example, who never ceases to entertain the company with

accounts

accounts of her family, and her ef tates. Any ftranger who heard her would suppose she was a filly creature, whofe head was turned by some flight pretence at least to rank, or the lordship of a manor; but ftill more ridiculous, she is the daughter of a steward's clerk in this neighbourhood. I cannot conceive how the human race can fo debafe itself.

I do indeed every day perceive more and more how abfurd it is to judge of others by one's felf. And it is with fo much difficulty that I ftop the ferment of my blood, and keep my heart at peace, that I very readily leave every one to purfue the

path

path he has chofen; but at the fame time I afk a like permiffion for myfelf.

Thefe paltry diftinctions between the inhabitants of the fame town, are what disturb me moft. I know perfectly well, that inequality of conditions is neceffary, and how much I myself gain by it. But I would not have this inftitution come in my way and hinder me, when I might enjoy fome pleasure, fome fhadow of happiness upon this earth.

I have lately made an acquaintance with a Miss B. a very agreeable girl; who, notwithstanding the formality and stiffness of the people

about