Discipline (Volume 1); A Novel

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1814. Excerpt: ... CHAP. IX. - ' There we Solicit pleasure, hopeless of success; Waste youth in occupations only fit For second childhood; and devote old age To sports which only childhood could excuse: There they are happiest who dissemble best Their weariness; and they the most polite, Who squander time and treasure with a smile, Though at their own destruction. Cowper. The fifth of May arrived; and never did lover, waiting the hour of meeting, suffer more doubts and tremors than I did, lest Mrs Beetham should disappoint me of my evening's parapharnalia. Although I had ordered the dress to be at my bed-side as soon as I awoke, the faithless mantua-maker detained it till after two o'clock, and the intermediate hours were consumed in fits of anger, suspence, and despondency. At last Vol. r. N it came; and I hastened to ascertain its becomingness and effect. I knew that Miss Mortimer was closeted with a medical friend; I had, therefore, no interruption to fear from her. Yet I locked myself into my dressing-room, because I could not, without constraint, allow even Miss Arnold to witness those rehearsals of vanity, which I was not ashamed to exhibit before Him who remembers that we are but dust. Others may smile at this and many other instances of my folly. I look back upon them as on the illusions of delirium, and shudder whilst I smile. I was practising before a looking-glass the attitudes most favourable to the display of my dress and figure, when my attention was drawn by the sound of bustle in the staircase. I opened my door to discover the cause of the noise, and perceived some of the servants bearing Miss Mortimer, to all appearance lifeless. In horror and alarm, I sprung towards her; and in answer to some incoherent questions, I learnt, that she had had a long private conference with Dr, and...