I would have given my life to have met with a
Miss Goton, if only for a quarter of an hour, but the time was past in
which the play of infancy predominated; increase of years had
introduced shame, the inseparable companion of a conscious deviation
from rectitude, which so confirmed my natural timidity as to render it
invincible; and never, either at that time or since, could I prevail
on myself to offer a proposition favorable to my wishes (unless in a
manner constrained to it by previous advances) even with those whose
scruples I had no cause to dread, and that I felt assured were ready
to take me at my word.
My stay at Madam de Vercellis's had procured me some acquaintance,
which I wished to retain. Among others, I sometimes visited a Savoyard
abbe, M. Gaime, who was tutor to the Count of Melarede's children.
He was young, and not much known, but possessed an excellent
cultivated understanding, with great probity, and was, altogether, one
of the best men I ever knew. He was incapable of doing me the
service I then stood most in need of, not having sufficient interest
to procure me a situation, but from him I reaped advantages far more
precious, which have been useful to me through life, lessons of pure
morality, and maxims of sound judgment.
In the successive order of my inclinations and ideas, I had ever
been too high or too low. Achilles or Thersites; sometimes a hero,
at others a villain. M. Gaime took pains to make me properly
acquainted with myself, without sparing or giving me too much
discouragement.
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